CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY, POMONA
ACADEMIC SENATE
GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE
REPORT TO
THE ACADEMIC SENATE
Referral Number: GE-008-134
General Education Subject Area Distribution
Minority Report
General Education Committee
Date:
November 18, 2014
Executive Committee
Received and Forwarded
Date:
,November 19, 2014
Academic Senate
Date:
November 19, 2014
DISCUSSION ITEM
December 3, 2014
Academic Senate
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BACKGROUND:
As Cal Poly Pomona prepares for conversion from a quarter to semester
academic calendar by Fall 2018, it is imperative that the general education (GE)
program be modified in a way to allow for operation on a semester calendar that
is in compliance with Executive Order 1065, as well as other campus and system
requirements.
The GE Committee of the Academic Senate is tasked to develop the necessary
structure for the GE Program that is suitable for implementation on a semester
calendar.
RESOURCES CONSULTED:
The following resources were consulted:
 Executive Order 1065, as well as the proposed revision to EO 1065
drafted by Chancellor Timothy White
 Executive Order 1061
 Current Curriculum Guide of Cal Poly Pomona
 General Education curriculum requirements of all CSU campuses
 GE Assessment Committee
 Associate Provost, Academic Programs, Claudia L. Pinter-Lucke
 Memo dated 5/16/14 from Provost Marten denBoer to the Senate
Executive Committee
 CPP Faculty, accomplished in a variety of ways:
o Direct contact of the GE Committee with department chairs and
members of faculty in all colleges responsible for GE
o Presentation at College of Business meeting of the Dean,
Associate Deans, Department Chairs, and Academic Senators
o All input via e-mail made to the members of the GE Committee,
which was shared with the committee
o Presentation at Fall Conference
o Three open university forums to discuss the proposal of the GE
committee on October 9, 14, and 16
RESOURCES CONSULTED FOLLOWING FIRST READING:
The following additional resources were consulted:
 CLASS Deans, Department Chairs and Senators at their meeting on
Monday, November 10, 2014.
 Chairs of departments not in CLASS that teach courses currently
approved for inclusion in GE Area D by email and phone on 11/12:
o Peter Kilduff (AMM);
o S. Terri Gomez (EWS);
o Shady K. Kholdy(FRL );
o Martin F. Sancho-Madriz (HNFS);
o Perky F. Vetter (KHP)
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DISCUSSION
The GE Committee began to take on the charge of this referral over the summer
months. First, we determined that we would work to find a solution that serves
the best interests of our students. Next, we examined whether a 48 unit GE
curriculum was feasible, given the educational requirements of 1065. Third, we
researched other CSU campus GE programs, including those with long-standing
semester course offerings, and those who have converted from quarters to
semesters, in order to determine how they met the educational requirements of
both EO 1065 and EO 1061 (American Ideals). It was at this point we found that
CSUs meet these requirements in a wide variety of ways.
The committee then broke into subgroups to investigate potential approaches to
subareas A-E, and reported findings back to the entire committee. We found two
primary outcomes: 1) campuses could be successful in 48 units, and 2) at least
two campuses satisfy both EO 1065 and EO 1061 in 48 units (Chico and
Humboldt). In our examination of EO 1065 and EO 1061, we found that B and D
would be the most significantly affected subareas under a 48 unit GE program.
In a straight conversion of quarter units to semesters, 68 quarter units yield 45.3
semester units. However, the minimum mandate for General Education is 48
semester units. Thus, the committee made a best-faith effort to find a path to GE
that allowed some students to satisfy GE in 48 semester units. The committee
found that descriptions of General Education in the Cal Poly Pomona Curriculum
Guide had become more restrictive over time, as compared to the language in
EO 1065. In order to be more open and inclusive to courses that would fulfill
different GE subareas, the committee decided to revert back to original EO 1065
language. For instance, the current Cal Poly description of subarea B2 is
Biological Sciences, whereas in EO 1065 this area is labeled Life Sciences.
In addition, we found that Cal Poly Pomona limited the opportunity to fulfill the
requirements of EO 1061 to two courses in area D of the General Education
Curriculum (D1 A + B). The GE Committee met with the Department Chairs of
both History and Political Science to discuss the two courses which currently
satisfy EO 1061 for Cal Poly Pomona students and are taught by their respective
departments. We acknowledge and appreciate their strong support for the
existing course content and the consistency with which instruction is given across
multiple sections. However, on most CSU campuses, multiple courses are
offered to fulfill the requirements of the historical development of American
Institutions, the Constitution of the United States, and the process of California
state and local governments. Furthermore, the committee found that large
campuses in the CSU (such as SDSU) offered several courses that met the
requirements of EO 1061, affording their students a wider variety of courses and
reducing the potential bottlenecks of offering a single course.
We found that across the CSU, these courses were housed in different areas of
the curriculum, both within and outside of GE – for example, some campuses
listed them as separate requirements for graduation, and did not include them as
requirements for GE. Excluding these courses from GE implicitly adds to the
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number of units required for graduation. Thus, the committee decided that the
courses should be part of GE, and best belonged within Area D.
The GE Committee would like to acknowledge that there exists a delicate
balance between the desired breadth of education and the required depth of
training at the college-level in order to graduate students with a competitive
advantage in their chosen fields. The committee strongly commits to our core
campus mission as a polytechnic institution, and has worked to create a general
education program that best achieves that value, incorporating essential general
education courses to create informed and critical-thinking citizens, and rigorous
department programs to develop students in their fields.
In order to build our draft proposal, we contacted department chairs over the
summer as they were available. Then, as faculty returned in the Fall Quarter, we
gathered input from faculty at open forums, individual presentations, invitations to
faculty to speak to the GE Committee, and via record of e-mails to the
committee. Given the campus-wide feedback, a 48 unit GE program is hereby
proposed.
DISCUSSION FOLLOWING FIRST READING:
The GE Committee reported its recommendations on this referral to the
Academic Senate on October 29. There was considerable discussion by the
members of the senate, mostly focused on objections to the recommendation
that there should be two lower division subareas within Area D. One senator
stated that the titles and descriptions of the two subareas did not seem to provide
a location for courses from one or more social science classes. Several Senators
also reiterated the importance of keeping GE at 48 units.
At its meeting on November 5, the GE committee discussed the Senate
concerns. One was that the titles and descriptions of the two sub areas within
Area D did not clearly convey the committee’s intention that all currently
approved social sciences courses would fit into one of the two proposed sub
areas. One suggested way to avoid this confusion would be to have only one
lower division subarea in Area D.
Dr. Hoyt met with the leadership of CLASS on 11/10. After reviewing the
committee’s proposal, he emphasized that all currently-approved social science
classes would fit into one of the two proposed lower division subareas and
requested working changes to clarify this. Also discussed was should a single
course be approved to satisfy EO 1061, as has occurred on two other CSU
campuses, then the reduction in FTES would be spread more evenly between
the departments teaching Area D courses. The CLASS leaders responded that
the two campuses with single 1061 courses (Monterey Bay and SLO) are not
good models for CPP to follow, and that the students need a solid basis in US
History and Political Science to be well-informed citizens. The CLASS members
voted unanimously to have designated areas for the History and Constitution
requirements in EO 1061 (D1 and D2) and a third area for the rest of the lower
division social science courses (D3). Another concern was that advising students
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to comply with the committee’s original proposal would be more challenging than
with three lower-division subareas from which the students would take one
course.
Dr. Hoyt contacted the chairs of the departments outside of CLASS that currently
teach lower-division courses in Area D. Dr. Kilduff (AMM) preferred the original
committee recommendation of two lower division categories as did Dr. Gomez
(EWS) and Dr. Kholdy (FRL ). Dr. Sancho-Madriz (HNFS) and Dr. Vetter (KHP)
had not yet formed an opinion at the time they were consulted.
On 11/12, the GE committee discussed Dr. Hoyt’s reports. Several members
believe that students should have a wider range of courses from which to
choose, and believe a proposal that does not include areas specifically
designated for EO 1061 will achieve that. Dr. Almaraz and Dr. Pinter-Lucke
believe that the advising issue is exaggerated and what we are suggesting,
explicitly marking the additional graduation requirements, is better than what we
now do for the Cultural Perspectives requirement. This also is not that different
than what community college students seeking certification are required to
complete. Dr. Pinter-Lucke believed that the committee should create areas for
GE that accommodate the outside requirement rather than create GE areas to
satisfy an outside requirement (EO 1061).
Some committee members spoke in favor of a structure with only one lower
division subarea for Area D, where students must take three lower division
courses. It was reasoned that this structure would avoid arbitrarily dividing the
range of social sciences and would, in fact, correspond exactly to the Area D
structure defined by EO 1065. The committee members voted on the following
options:
a. The GE Committee’s original recommendation of two lower division areas;
b. The structure preferred by CLASS with two subareas for any approved EO
1061 classes and a third area for all other social science classes;
c. A single lower division subarea which would include the EO 1061 courses
and all other lower division social science classes.
The results: six votes for a single lower division subarea (option c, above) five
votes for the structure preferred by CLASS with three subareas (b, above), no
votes for the committee’s original recommendation (a, above), and one
abstention. (The committee was advised that the thirteenth member of the
committee had resigned.) On Friday (11/14) several members of the committee
wrote majority and minority reports ensuring that the only differences between
the two reports were the elements dealing with Area D including the SLOs
mapped to Area D.
Arguments in support of the Minority Report: Five members of the committee
recommend a structure for Area D in which students are required to take one
course from each of three subareas: D1, with courses satisfying the history
component of E.O. 1061; D2, with courses satisfying the government and politics
component of E.O. 1061; and D3, with all other social science courses. There are
several reasons for this recommendation:
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This structure simplifies GE choices for the purposes of scheduling,
advising, and transition from quarters to semesters. It makes the
requirement of Area D exactly the same as all of the other areas of GE:
“one course from each subarea” and keeps the structure very similar to
the version of Area D in the current quarter curriculum. It avoids the
complication of having four different ‘graduation requirements’ for students
to learn and keep track of (i.e. R1, R2, R3, R4).
Producing well-informed citizens should be one of our highest priorities.
Students need a solid basis in US History and Political Science and the
objectives of the California Code of Regulation (Section 40404) and E.O.
1061 are best served by two full courses in these areas. This opinion is
shared by 19 of the other 22. This opinion was unanimously endorsed by
the CLASS Chairs, including several from Departments that would have
benefited from the adoption of a single EO 1061 course.
It is best to have separate areas of the GE curriculum designated for the
two EO 1061 courses. This pattern is used by at least 12 of the 16 CSU
campuses currently on semester calendars.
The way D1 and D2 are defined would permit departments other than
History and Political Science to propose courses, thus meeting the
objective of increasing the diversity of courses available to students in GE.
Arguments against the Majority Report:
 The only substantial argument for having all Area D lower division courses
in a single category is that makes it possible for a single course to be
approved as satisfying EO 1061 and this is a bad idea. Only two other
CSU campuses do this and they are not good models for CPP: one
(Monterey Bay) has a very different, more integrated curriculum and the
other (SLO) has approved courses that do not seem to actually contain all
required areas of content.
 Scheduling, advising, and transition from quarters to semesters will be
more complex because students will be required to keep track of four
‘graduation requirements’ instead of just one
 A single course satisfying EO 1061 would not reduce the number of units
taken in Area D and thus has a neutral effect on the curricula of other
Colleges and Departments.
An additional charge of the GE Committee was to map the GE Student Learning
Outcomes accepted by the Academic Senate in 2013-14 onto the areas of
General Education to be proposed under the semester system. The Committee
reviewed data from a survey administered by the GE Assessment Committee
which was completed by department chairs offering courses in existing GE
areas. In addition, the GE Assessment Committee was invited to the GE
Committee meeting to explain and discuss the GE Student Learning Outcomes.
With this information, the GE Committee proposed a map of the GE Student
Learning Outcomes onto the new GE curriculum structure. After vetting this
mapping to the university, feedback from departments offering courses in
subarea C1 were received. Further evaluations was made regarding the
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feedback and it was determined that the Student Learning Outcomes were
acceptable. The final mapping is available here as an attachment.
RECOMMENDATION:
A minority of the GE Committee recommends GE-008-134 Minority Report as
the new unit distribution for the semester system.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Map of GE Student Learning Outcomes Minority Report on proposed GE
subareas
2. Proposed 48 semester unit Curriculum Guide Minority Report for Cal
Poly Pomona General Education
3. Existing Curriculum Guide for Cal Poly Pomona General Education
4. Referral GE-008-134 (email from Provost denBoer included with original
referral)