General Education Review Task Force
Meeting, 14 February 2001
Red Oak Room, 4:30-5:30 pm


Minutes

Present: Faculty-Bruce, Dohse, Friedenberg, Hardy, Konz, Krumpe, McKnight, Moseley, Nelms, Pons, White-Carter, Katz; Students--Clere, Wilde-Ramsing; Alumni-Proctor. [Members on off-campus scholarly assignment/leave: Mike Ruiz, Tracey Rizzo]


1. Senate resolution--Dr. Katz reported on the second reading of the Senate resolution proposal and the vote that followed at the Senate session on 8 February. The Senate discussion of the resolution was candid and useful; Katz addressed a number of important questions raised by senators. The resolution passed with 13 for, 1 against, and 1 abstention. Special thanks goes to Keith Krumpe, who is on Senate and a member of APC, for his strong and supportive comments on the work our group has been doing. Several members of the Senate made it a point to have me thank members directly for their energy on this project and their willingness to serve the University. Also as a result of the resolution our name has been changed to the General Education Review Task Force (GERTF).

2. SACS report and directive recommendations--We continued our discussions of the directive recommendations for curriculum, fiscal allocation, and institutional change. 

Dr. Katz read a memo forwarded to him by student GERTF member Maegan Spencer (Chemistry), who raised a number of excellent points. Among them were a reassessment of general education requirements and course criteria; examination of ways to give general education a "presence" on campus, possibly through "a specified chair [director] and faculty"; study of requirements that may overlap given major requirements; exploration of ways to create "a more encompassing curriculum" that has a rationale other than course availability; discussion of involving students on curriculum committees on an on-going basis. Maegan's comments sparked some interesting conversation. 

We explored additions, subtractions, and rewording of our directive recommendations. We discussed including a more strongly worded recommendation that we study the practice of using or substituting general education courses for additional coursework in the major, which has the effect of limiting student choice in course selection. We also discussed the importance of defining the term interdisciplinary. It was observed that how we define this term will affect how departments will be able to, or possibly prevented from, shaping curricular connections with other departments. We also thought it necessary to define the term diversity, so that are discussions of the recommendations in the report from the Diversity Taskforce will be more productive and so that our discussions of diversity in the curriculum will be clearer. Another curricular issue we raised was that of including a recommendation to study the idea of a senior capstone experience or project as part of students' general education work, as many liberal arts universities do.

We also reëxamined our directive recommendations for institutional change and fiscal reallocation. Here we thought it necessary to include a more strongly worded recommendation that we explore how best to integrate adjuncts into general education courses, in order to maintain smaller class sizes, without undermining the program's ability to draw in more full-time faculty. It is not in the best interest of general education to over-rely on adjunct faculty. We also decided to add a recommendation for examining faculty development and built-in reward structures for individuals who contribute to the general education curriculum. Finally, we thought it necessary to include a recommendation that we examine the impact of tenure, promotion, and post-tenure review criteria on general education: it was thought by several members of the taskforce that current tenure and promotion criteria work against faculty who devote themselves to general education courses and may prove to be a disincentive for individuals considering participation in the general education program.

Katz will revise the two directive recommendation documents and distribute them by email attachment.

3. Going public--We discussed the matter of how best to put the work of our taskforce before the campus community. Katz will draft an email announcement of website and will revise the website to reflect not only our progress, but also our change in identity as a result of the Senate Resolution. GERTF members should review both the email announcement and the website itself to help ensure that we are representing ourselves accurately and usefully. 

We also discussed whether or not to include minutes on the website. After some conversation, it was agreed that this would be an excellent idea, offering the campus community a direct way to see what we are doing, to review the issues we are raising, and to begin thinking through their own views on general education. We also observed that having the minutes on the website will provide a way for faculty, students and others to see who is present at our discussions, which in turn may offer them a sense of who to contact to voice their ideas, questions, and concerns.

4. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, 28 February, 4:30-5:30 pm, in the Red Oak Room. This will be our last meeting before Spring Break; make every effort to attend.