General Education Committee
Meeting Minutes
Date: September 18, 2015
Committee Members Present: Edris Montalvo, Matt Van Sant, Mandy Husak, Karla Oty,
Holly Rice, Dana Hilbert, Mandi Smith, Yingqin Liu, Yanjun Zhao, Marge Kingsley, Ann
Nalley, and Loree Gaines
1. Meeting was called to order at 2:00 PM in the MCC Executive Board Room.
2. Holly Rice was introduced as the Faculty Senate Representative.
3. Dr. Chris Keller requested a modification to the course title of COMM 1113 from
Fundamentals of Speech to Principles of Communications to accommodate the changes in
the field of communications.
The General Education Committee (GEC) approved Dr. Keller’s request.
4. Dr. Lance Janda requested modification to the course title of HIST 2113 from Western
Civilization I to Early World History and HIST 2223 from Western Civilization II to Modern
World.
The GEC approved Dr. Janda’s request.
5. Dr. Lance Janda and Dr. Edris Montalvo requested GEOG 2013 Physical Geography become
a Physical Science General Education Course to coincide with other colleges and
universities.
After much debate the GEC voted to deny this request.
6. Dr. Carla Guthridge requested that the Biological Sciences General Education courses be
permitted to change their assessment tool from an essay format to a multiple-choice format
for Critical Thinking. Dr. Van Sant will provide the GEC with copies of the questions to be
used for BIOL 1004 General Biology, BIOL 1214 Human Biology, BIOL 1364 Principles of
Biology I, and ENSC 2004 Introduction to Environmental Science for assessment.
7. Minutes from the August 21, 2015 meeting were read and approved.
8. Mandi Smith was elected as the Chair-Elect for the GEC for next year. Since a majority of
the GEC members retire at the end of this academic year, the GEC will decide at a future
meeting how it wants to handle the vacancies in the GEC for next year.
9. General Education Advisors were assigned to various departments to assist with General
Education questions and issues. The GEC wants to emphasize the use of data driven changes.
10. Dr. Montalvo will give a PowerPoint presentation on General Education to the President’s
Strategic Planning Committee on October 26, 2015.
11. Dr. Vanderslice approved and has disseminated the 2014-2015 General Education
recommendation on how to collect information about General Education from students.
a. The Questions on General Education SLO’s will now be administered during General
Education courses by using additional IDEA questions.
b. For the Capstone courses, a survey regarding General Education SLO’s will be
administered through Survey Monkey. Capstone instructors are encouraged to give the link
to their students and to encourage the students to fill out the questions.
12. Other Business.
a. Dr. Hodgson has asked for an extension on keeping ENGL 2343 Women in Literature as
a General Education class. The GEC will discuss this at the October meeting.
b. A recommendation has been forwarded to the Regents to remove MATH 1715 and
Honors Composition I and II from Cameron University’s General Education curriculum.
13. Edris Montalvo will send out a doodle poll to see when the best times for the GEC to meet
will be this year.
14. Meeting was adjourned at 3:17 PM.
Submitted by Loree Gaines