Ramapo College of New Jersey
General Education Curriculum Committee (GECCo)
Meeting Minutes of Wednesday, September 15, 2010
1:30 A.M. – 2:30 P.M.
Venue: ASB-230
Members present: Meredith Davis (CA), Monika Giacoppe (AIS), Clyde Johnson
(TAS), Christina Connor (Library), Donovan McFeron (TAS), Rob Mentore (TAS),
Emma Rainforth (TAS, Ex-Officio), Nick Salter (SSHS), Beba Shamash (CA), Gladys
Torres-Baumgarten (ASB), Ashwani Vasishth (SSHS), Jim Woodley (ASB, Ex-Officio),
Don Fucci (AIS), Rick Nunez (ASB), Eric Daffron (Provost’s Office)
Absent: Sam Mustafa (AIS)
1.
Announcements:
CWAC Report

Rob Mentore gave a brief report on the first meeting of the College Wide
Assessment Committee (CWAC) that was held last week.

Eric Daffron noted that he had put a FAQ section on the assessment website.
History and Resources Available to GECCo
2.

A brief discussion ensued concerning particular curriculum assessment efforts
that predated the formation of GECCo.

Emma Rainforth noted that our syllabi should refer to “Course Enrichment” rather
than “Experiential Learning”, as the former is more accurate than the latter, and
in-line with the original intent of the five-hour outside-of-class activity.

Rob Mentore noted that the college has institutional outcomes (Mission Pillars),
while we also have general education outcomes. He noted that the 2006
curriculum didn’t contain a complete set of Student Learning Objectives (SLOs).
As part of this discussion, Rob suggested that the PDF document entitled
Outcomes Mapping Fall09 (available on the GECCo Google docs site) may
provide a useful starting point for our work. This document was developed last
fall as part of an exercise that sought to map the college’s Mission Pillars to
general education courses and categories.

A suggestion was made to survey the faculty (after updating the document) on the
mapping of pillars to courses/categories. Another committee member noted the
urgency of looming deadlines, and the need to make progress. Members agreed
that the mapping document remains a useful resource.
Discussion items:
Writing Assessment – Final Decision on Samples to be Assessed

After another round of discussions, in addition to the previous weeks’ numerous
email exchanges, the committee decided that we will ask for writing samples that
fit the following criteria:
o Length: between 750 – 1,600 words (approximately 3 – 8 pages).
o Last graded assignment of the semester (first draft, if drafts are allowed).
o Paper may contain outside sources.
The committee noted that not all professors may require outside sources
(particularly in assignments for first-year students), which would result in
collecting papers that do not contain citations. Such papers may skew results
negatively as writing assessment readers would be using a rubric that calls for
citations. To account for these types of papers, we will adjust the writing rubric to
include “N/A” (not applicable).
Writing Assessment – Detailed Procedure for Collecting, Storing, and Assessing
Writing Samples

Clyde Johnson noted the importance of using proper sampling techniques when
collecting papers. He also noted that he’d prefer to see a “3-D map” (as opposed
to the 2-D map generated in the fall) that would show mappings at a more
granular level, but would show the relationships between the SLOs and courses
and the assessment tools.

Eric Daffron noted that we should consider requesting samples from more
sections than previously proposed (e.g. 5 versus 2), and discussed the benefits of
doing so.

Rob Mentore proposed a method by which a large number of writing samples
could be collected and stored on an online “web-store” by class-level (“firstyear”, “sophomore”, etc.), and offered the benefits of organizing the data in this
way. The group discussed the challenges of enacting such a plan, including the
size of the data collection effort, and the time required for analysis.

The group agreed to discuss the procedures for collecting data in more detail
during our next meeting.
Next Assessment

Rob Mentore proposed that mathematical reasoning be considered next for
assessment. He noted that mathematical reasoning is a category in the general
education curriculum and it is also a distinct learning outcome. Additionally,
courses in the mathematical reasoning category were essentially left out of the
writing assessment effort because these courses do not incorporate substantial
writing assignments. The group discussed the benefits of adopting this as the next
assessment category.
Minutes submitted by Rick Nunez, 09.16.10