General Education Committee Minutes, 9/24/07 2:10 in GBB 202
Members present: S. Hines, D. MacDonald, D. Morton, D. Potts, D. Sloan, G. Weix,
Ex-officio present: A. Walker-Andrews
Members absent: K. Hill, G. Johnson, F. Rosenzweig, K. Shanley
In the absence of a chair the meeting was called to order at 2:15 by the administrative associate.
Communications:
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Sandra Williams from Curriculum and Instruction recently resigned from the committee so
ECSO will need to find another member from the professional schools.
Schedules were collected in order to find a meeting time that will allow the other members to
attend.
Members were provided with handouts that included the draft minutes from the recent Faculty
Senate and ASCRC meeting, the General Education Framework, timeline, and letter from
Provost Engstrom to the Senate Chair that were discussed at these meetings. There will be an
open faculty meeting on general education October 3rd and then a vote at the Faculty Senate
October 11th. The General Education Committee is charged with forming subcommittees to
develop the criteria and learning outcomes of each of the groups. Camie will send email
requests to faculty that served on the Perspective Assessment Committees to see whether they
are willing to serve.
Business Items:
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The committee needs to elect a chair. However, no members expressed an interest and therefore
the position will remain open until the next meeting and members that could not attend today
will be asked to consider the position.
The committee discussed how to approach the task of developing criteria for each of the groups
and created five subcommittees and assigned members of the General Education Committee to
chair the subcommittees. Members not chairing subcommittees were asked to serve on a
subcommittee. It was decided that each subcommittee should consist of five or six members.
Group II: Mathematics
Group III: Modern and Classical Languages or
Symbolic Systems
Don Morton
Debbie Sloan
Group IV: Expressive Arts
Group V: Literary and Artistic Studies
Greg Johnson
Group VI: Historical and Cultural Studies
Group VIII: Ethics and Human Values
G.G. Weix
Group VII: Social Sciences
Douglas MacDonald
Group XI: Natural Sciences
Group IX: American and European Perspectives
Group X: Indigenous and Global Perspectives
Don Potts
Samantha Hines
Kate Shanley
Camie will update the chairs of the progress in finding suitable members.
Subcommittee chairs could start the process by reviewing the current criteria and researching
how other institutions define similar requirements. The subcommittees should consider the
difficulties in determining whether a course meets the criteria or outcomes and how these are
affectively assessed by reviewing a syllabus. Alternative methods of ongoing review of general
education courses may also be discussed. The Senate Office has syllabi of general education
courses reviewed in the past if subcommittee chairs would like to reference these.
The committee should meet again after the model has been approved.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:55 p.m.