Office of Academic Programs • 1000 East Victoria St. • Carson, CA 90747
General Education Committee
Monday, September 28, 2015
10:00am-12:00pm – Provost’s Conference Room
Minutes
Present: J. Hill, J. Dote-Kwan, I. Heinze-Balcazar, K. Bragg, M. Chavez, B. Riddick, A. Choi, J.
Wilkins (phoned in)
Absent: V. D’Aquino
1. Committee Discussion Regarding Rubrics for GE Areas and Program Review
a. J. Dote-Kwan- The discussion started because so many GE course
portfolios would get turned back to the departments. Some questions
were that the directions were not clear enough, that more training is
needed or the rubric is not clear. If the rubric is clear, then faculty would
know exactly what they need to do.
b. J. Dote-Kwan worked on the rubric over the summer. Some of the same
information was listed across the rubric which made it confusing. In
spring she and L. Fitzsimmons added new information to be more in line
with the WASC rubric which is highlighted in yellow.
c. The bold text highlights critical words for emphasis. The items
highlighted in green include text where there are no differences in the
wording. These are same standards listed across the rubric, some which
may be removed or combined, for example item three and item four.
i. Even with these adjustments, there are still thirty-four items which
are still too many to score on.
d. J. Dote-Kwan suggests the committee eliminate the nonessential items.
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e. K. Bragg- Currently, many of the items appear to be busy work and do not
seem to give faculty useful information.
f. J. Dote-Kwan asked if there are ways to reduce the number of items
faculty have to score on because the GE committee members also have to
score on all of the items when they review the submissions.
g. K. Bragg- They get trapped in the same thing as the faculty submitting the
report; it’s too much information that is not useful and they are not sure
what to do with it. They can summarize the information, but we are not
sure how to make it useful information.
h. M. Chavez asked what would make it useful information. What are they
looking for in the submissions from the GE classes?
i. J. Dote-Kwan- One of the reasons for GE assessment is to make sure the
courses are still meeting the GE objectives it says it does and to what
capacity are the students learning. WASC is looking to see if students are
learning what they say the course is supposed to teach them. They want to
make sure the courses are being taught and following what they said
when they were originally proposed.
i. K. Bragg- That is important because the committee is so heavily
dependent on course syllabi, however the syllabi that are submitted
to them are not master syllabi for the course and do not necessarily
reflect how the course is being taught.
j.
J. Dote-Kwan- GE has core competencies and content competencies. The
GE committee has primarily focused on content competencies from the
Areas. They have not looked at the overall common core competencies,
regardless of specific GE courses, or majors. The existing rubric or current
process does not include the review of the overall common core.
k. J. Hill- The claim historically was that if you are aligned to the objectives,
then you could show student learning.
i. J. Dote-Kwan- What evidence do they have to support that claim?
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l. K. Bragg- The rubric they have is heavy on the knowledge and content
with very important pieces while other pieces may not be that useful.
m. There is very little evidence in the rubric of how they are looking at
student learning and if students are learning.
n. M. Chavez asked if there is there a model example of assessment that we
can learn from rather than start from scratch.
i. J. Dote-Kwan- There is no right or wrong way to do the assessment,
it depends on the campus. For example, a campus does the review
by Core Competencies annually. The courses that address the
writing Core Competency are submitted and assessed. Those GE
packages were aligned with WASC and built courses with the
alignment.
ii. We have been doing GE assessment by area in line with the
Chancellor’s Office which is a different set of requirements. She
suggested reviewing by Area but pull out the Core Competencies,
but the Areas still need to be reviewed.
o. K. Bragg- They need to identify the Areas where the Core Competencies
are and those will be part of the revision of the GE area learning
objectives. Revising the Area objectives has been a discussion for over a
year.
i. J. Dote-Kwan- She wanted to do a curriculum map by Core
Competency. They need to demonstrate that there is a progression
of the competencies, especially with the upper division courses to
show introductory, intermediate, and reinforcement levels. To
build a map with all the GE courses to see what they all do, they
can see which courses may be missing the competencies.
p. J. Hill asked what will be expected of the departments who have courses
for review this semester.
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q. K. Bragg- Need to focus on what to ask faculty for that is productive. The
committee needs to get something that is informative this year. They need
to revise the rubric as a practice and distribute it to the faculty with a
reasonable task of what to do and reach out to help them complete the
process.
r. J. Dote-Kwan suggested piloting the revised rubric this year. When they
receive feedback and make changes, this will allow for continuous
improvement of the rubrics. This also gives them documentation for
WASC that they are improving their process and student learning
outcomes.
s. It was noted that departments were already contacted by L. Fitzsimmons
and sent a revised GE rubric and the WASC rubric which may be
confusing.

J. Wilkins, Natural Science representative, called in to the meeting.
1. Meeting called to order: 11:00 a.m.
a. J. Hill- There are two main points to the meeting, to elect a committee
chair and go over GE assessment. The committee had been having an
informal discussion as they did not have a quorum.
2. Approval of Agenda
a. B. Riddick moved to approve. J. Dote-Kwan seconded. M/S/P
b. Approved
3. Approval of September 14, 2015 Minutes
a.
Accepted
4. Informational Report from Jim Hill Regarding Questions Related to September
14th Discussion
a. J. Hill was asked to check on information about the Area F coordinators. It
is clear in the GE charge that the Area F coordinators sit on the GE
committee. The EPC is committed to revising the GE committee charge,
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including specifically working with the Area F committees to expand their
charge.
b. No other information related to the Area F Humanities subcommittee,
independent of T. Giannotti’s memo was available. The Social &
Behavioral Sciences and Science, Math & Technology subcommittee have
their own schedules of meetings and handle matters differently. These are
issues that need to be straightened out.
c. K. Bragg- The reassigned time for the GE committee chair is 3 units per
semester.
d. J. Hill- As written, the GE charge does not state anything forbidding cochairs for the committee.
e. K. Bragg confirmed that the questions asked had been answered and
informed the committee that the GE charge will be revised.
f. I. Heinze-Balcazar commented she thinks it would be good idea to revise
the charge include co-chairs.
g. J. Dote-Kwan suggested having an assistant or vice chair rather than a cochair as part of the charge, who can step in if the chair cannot fulfill their
duties, or may want to take a sabbatical.
i. M. Chavez likes the idea of vice chair and should bring that idea to
Senate Exec.
h. K. Bragg asked for a sense of the GE committee members.
i. The sense of the committee is to have a vice chair rather than a cochair.
ii. I. Heinze-Balcazar- If a vice chair is added to the charge, then the
GE committee will move forward with the election of Vice Chair as
they do not find themselves in the same situation.
5. Election of GE Committee Chair
a. I. Heinze-Balcazar nominated J. Wilkins as chair of the GE Committee and
he accepted the nomination.
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b. A paper vote was conducted among the committee members.
c. 5 votes for J. Wilkins. 1 abstention.
d. J. Wilkins was elected chair of GE Committee.
6. Continued Discussion of Committee Information Regarding Rubrics for GE Areas
a. K. Bragg suggested they come up with a strategy for this fall to address
the Area department chairs who already been sent documents and be
confused about what they should do for their assessment. The committee
wants to come up “practice” that is a more thoughtful process to get a
revision for the spring.
b. M. Chavez asked why there are not coordinators for lower division GE
Areas since there are coordinators for upper division areas. There are
several departments that contribute to those areas.
i. J. Hill- His impression is that historically it is because the courses
have the independent prefixes. About 10 years ago, there were
meetings and discussion about the difference between crossdisciplinary and interdisciplinary courses. Since the upper division
courses are cross-disciplinary they are explicitly apart from
departments. Because of that, they would logically need
independent scheduling, apart from the department chairs.
c. J. Dote-Kwan asked why separate coordinators are needed if the courses
are going back to the departments. The scheduling should go through the
departments and colleges.
i. I. Heinze-Balcazar-The GE committee had a conversation about
maintaining the quality of the programs. The SBS subcommittee
has met and agreed to have a coordinator for scheduling. She
emphasized not all SBS courses are changing the prefix. The
schedule is more challenging now. Also, there will be proposals for
new courses within the areas and these subcommittees will be the
first step for review.
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d. J. Dote-Kwan- Area A would also need a coordinator based on the
justification of cross-discipline courses and scheduling. Other courses are
cross-disciplinary, they should have coordinators. The Area Coordinator
could be the contact person to meet with the faculty, and should be
responsible for the assessment of the areas to make sure they get put
together in a meaningful way.
e. M. Chavez stated it would make things move smoother as those Area
representatives could oversee the process and theoretically be from the GE
committee or sit on committee.
f. J. Dote-Kwan- If there were Area coordinators who sat on the GE
committee, they would know what they want, what they can expect. The
more people they have, the better it is because of the large workload.
i. The Area representative could make sure how the core
competencies are addressed in each of the Areas and whether
they’re being adequately addressed in each Area.
g. J. Dote-Kwan- some faculty may not know the definitions used in the
rubrics, for example “co-curricular.” Removing the overlaps will reduce
the rubric from 34 to 25 items.
h. I. Heinze-Balcazar commented that it would be helpful to offer another
workshop on the revised assessment rubrics.
i. Consider collaborating with the University Student Learning Outcomes
Assessment Committee (USLOAC). Department chairs have gotten better
at assessment due to the annual reports that are now due, but it is not
necessarily the chairs that are doing the assessment for GE courses.
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j.
The GE Committee will need to send out another notification to the
department chairs who have assessment portfolios due with the revised
rubric and map, and clarification on what they need to submit.
k. J. Dote-Kwan will revise the GE assessment rubric send it out before the
next meeting for review.
7. Adjourn: 11:35 a.m.
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