LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM
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Liberal Studies Committee
Meeting Minutes
September 16, 2011
Approved
Present Voting Members: Sara Aleman, Patrick Battles, Mark Cornwall, Bruce Fox,
Amalia Garzon, Dean Smith, Blase Scarnati (Chair), Nancy Stackhouse (via phone), and
Julie Swann.
Present Ex-Officio Members and Guests: Don Carter, Todd Firth, Greg Glau, Joseph
Marques, and Karen Pugliesi.
Excused Voting Members: Jim Morgan
Absent Voting Members: Vicki Black-Bishop, Blaise Caudill, and Rosalinda Haddon.
I.
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II.
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Welcome & introductions – Blase Scarnati, Chair
The meeting was called to order at 3:03PM. Blase advised the committee that
“binder” materials are available on the LSC SharePoint site for their review or to
print and create binders as they see fit. If you have any problems with
SharePoint, contact Joe.
a) Karen Pugliesi discussed the importance of this year’s Liberal Studies program
review; in fact we’re hosting the external consultants next week Sunday through
Wednesday. Karen also discussed the implementation of the First Year Learning
Initiative and how it will help shape the liberal studies program and strengthen
pedagogy. She said one difficulty lies in engaging the wider campus community
and she encouraged group to discuss liberal studies issues and initiatives with
their colleagues who are teaching this program and sometimes don’t even realize
they are. The funding and conceptual scheme of the university is changing and
there’s a new emphasis on student success and retention. ABOR funding is now
tied to those metrics, but is a real opportunity to transform pedagogy to enhance
student success.
b) Kudos to Bruce Fox for the Liberal Studies self-study; he took charge and
almost single-handedly pulled it all together. It has been sent out, but the last
chapter really sums it up well. Karen announced the meetings scheduled for the
liberal studies committee and the external consultants. Bruce summarized the
findings of the self-study process and what lies ahead, as well as next week’s
schedule when the consultants are on-campus and the meeting expectations
between faculty and consultants, they being David Reinhold, Western Michigan
University, and Ann Ferren, Senior Fellow at the Association of American
Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Karen said she expects they’ll be in
charge of sessions, but they will ask us questions and try to draw out information
to help them understand our program better.
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c) Blase discussed implementation of the Global Learning Initiative. The GLI
was adopted by the Faculty Senate in January 2010, but the committee hasn’t
grappled with how we’re going to deal with GLI. A lot of departments have
looked to us for guidance and have had to deal with as best they could. This
initiative helps students become more confident in three key areas: global
engagement, environmental sustainability, and diversity education. We’re
charged with taking those values and inscribing it into the curriculum. We need
to create a learning experience for years one through four. Dean Smith described
the concept of a thread that ties all 35 hours of liberal studies together into one
educational experience that enhances their area of study. Most students and
faculty don’t see the thread or realize it’s there. Group discussion regarding the
“thread” concept and why it’s not present. Among the reasons was that
responsibility has effectively been ceded to the departments and their
considerations are often local in nature. Some liberal studies courses are taken
almost exclusively by majors and not by student body at large. Most students
view is as something they must do to graduate and don’t realize they can link it
together to make their education a more meaningful experience. This can be
emphasized through the various stages of advising. Discussion regarding whether
we offer too many choices (469 liberal studies courses) and perhaps it
overwhelms students, and the merits of reducing the list and aligning liberal
studies courses to offer a cleaner pathway. Blase mentioned that one difficulty is
the “recipe” we have in place where students are required to take this, plus this,
plus this…, etc. Group also discussed the tendency among faculty to resist
change or anything that might reduce the classes they teach due to various,
including perceived threats to funding. Blase suggests working with departments,
engaging them, changing relationships to get them to buy in. Discussion
regarding the difficulties surrounding the ENG 105/101/102 issues.
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Blase presented an overview of the First Year Learning Initiative. It an initiative
to teach the foundation courses for first year students, such as ENG 105, MAT
102, and biology courses to help socialize first year students to the college
environment. It is based on key pedagogical strategies the really work with first
year students. It involves intensive dialogue about what’s possible and practices
that work really well. When discussing the standardized ENG 105 syllabus, Blase
and Michelle Miller came up with some really great ideas that hadn’t been
considered before. These classes have been around a really long time, but have
become “certified” by adopting FLI standards. There are currently 25 certified
courses and departments are now approaching FYLI to inquire as to how their
classes can become certified as well. The faculty teaching the courses is
dedicated to the program. Karen said that although budgets are tight, because this
is such a high priority initiative, there are some resources that can be brought to
bear. For example, Philosophy wants students to learn through writing, so money
was made available to pay for graders.
Action Item: committee voted to establish a prerequisite for all Junior Level Writing
(JLW) courses that “completion of the English Foundation requirement is a prerequisite
for this junior-level writing course.” Dean Smith made the motion, Bruce Fox seconded,
committee approved unanimously.
Meeting adjourned at 3:41PM.