General Education Committee
November 20, 2009 Howell Hall 107 1:00 PM
Approved Minutes
Members present:
Abdulhamid Sukar – Business
Mohammad Tabatabai – Mathematical Sciences
John Geiger – Psychology
Greg Treadwell - Business
John Hodgson – English
Antonio Laverghetta – Psychology
David Fennema – Theatre Arts
Jason Smith – Library
(Chair) Kirsten Underwood – Music
Mary Penick – Computing and Technology
John McArthur, and Jerry Dodd were also present.
Agenda Items/Discussions
1. The meeting was called to order at 1:02 PM.
2. Hodgson made a motion to approve the October 30 minutes. Laverghetta seconded.
3. Old business: CRM 3603 is being dropped, and General Psychology is dropping objectives 1a,
1c, 2a, 3a, and 3b, as well as embedding questions in class exams for the other objectives.
History and Government is including seven of their thirteen general education courses that are
being offered this fall. They have created a Development Chart and assigned professors to
individual courses, along with a submission date of the assessment instrument and rubric. The
Pilot Sub-Committee for Objective 2.d met on Nov. 13 and sample rubrics were shown for
discussion. Underwood said that the committee is now questioning how much % to assess, such
as 60% to 70%.
4. New business: The General Education Committee has been assigned the task to help reduce
General Education hours. To facilitate discussion, Underwood had prepared a chart illustrating
the total number of hours required for a bachelors degree along with the total number of general
education hours established by each regional Oklahoma university/college, with Cameron
included for comparison. A general education core summary page for each institution was also
attached. Additionally, the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education policy pages for
general education were distributed.
5. Underwood pointed out that the Oklahoma State Regents requirements for general education
contain a minimum of 40 hours excluding physical education activity courses. Cameron
University requires 4 hours of physical education unless waived by certain circumstances. It was
agreed by the committee that the Physical Education department could be hurt by any changes in
reducing this requirement. McArthur said that many students take physical education classes in
order to balance out hours to be a multiple of 3 and also that many activity courses are taught by
adjuncts or coaches, while some other programs such as nursing are taught by full time faculty.
6. The Committee then compared what general education courses Cameron requires versus what the
State Regents require. Various courses were discussed, such as Economics, Economic
Geography, and multiple science courses. McArthur offered to obtain the enrollment history for
the general education courses in order to see the courses with the highest enrollment.
7. Hodgson suggested letting each department choose which general education courses they want
their students to have as prerequisites. Underwood used Southwestern State University as an
example of a college that employs this method. McArthur said the secondary education programs
have guided electives. Discussion led to problems with this method, including students who
change majors and concerns about not having every student get the same general education core.
Underwood made a motion to table this idea, and the committee agreed.
8. Discussion continued about Physical Education courses and the reduction of the number of
general education requirements. McArthur said the larger issue is the reduction of hours for a
baccalaureate degree from 128 hours down to 124 hours. He said that the chairs and deans are
concerned about cutting out the majors. The committee discussed cutting the six general
education electives. McArthur said the state requires 124 hours for education programs, and this
number will be consistent with other institutions across the state. McArthur also said that this
reduction will result in changing at least 12 degree plans on campus, and they will need time to
do their curriculum changes and program modifications.
9. Discussion continued about removing 6 hours of electives from general education. Various
committee members agreed that these courses can still be taught, just not required under general
education. Penick suggested that theoretically some departments are using these free electives as
guided electives for their programs. McArthur mentioned some departments that have these
requirements such as secondary education programs will end up with higher numbers of courses.
He said this is due to programs that have external accrediting programs that require more courses.
10. After continued discussion about this issue, Fennema moved to get feedback in writing from
departments on the issue of removing 6 hours of general education electives by 02/01/10.
Interested faculty could then attend the Feb. 19, 2010 General Education Committee meeting to
discuss the matter. Tabatabai seconded this motion. McArthur said he could introduce this
measure on the Dec. 8, 2009 Council of Chairs Meeting Agenda.
11. Jerry Dodd was in attendance concerning adding ENSC 2004 Earth Science as a general
education course. He was advised regarding appropriate approval steps, and was given
instructions to fill out the Curriculum Change Form. Underwood agreed to follow up.
12. Next meeting will be schedule during the 1st week of December with time TBA.
13. Meeting adjourned at 2:06 PM.