Present: Faculty—Bruce, Dohse, Friedenberg, Hardy, Konz, Krumpe, Lee, McKnight, Moseley, Nelms, Ruiz, White-Carter, Katz

1. George Lucas visit—On Friday, September 21 a representative from the American Academy for Liberal Education, George Lucas, will visit the UNCA campus to meet with faculty and staff and discuss the possibility of program accreditation by AALE for our General Education program. This would be a supplemental accreditation and would not replace the institutional accreditation carried out by SACS. There will be a presentation at 2:45 pm in Laurel Forum for all interested faculty members. There will also be a meeting with members of the GERTF at 4 pm in Laurel Forum. GERTF members should make every effort to attend the later meeting.

2. Sarah Wilkins of the Blue Banner—Sarah Wilkins would like to attend GERTF meetings; she is also interested in interviewing the Chair of the task force and other task force members. All of us agreed that the meetings were open to those who are interested and Ms. Wilkins would be welcome. Several members suggested that Ms. Wilkins read the minutes available on the website, along with other background information and documents that are posted there.

3. Faculty Forum—We reviewed the issues discussed at the Faculty Forum on General Education. We discussed what sorts of follow-up events or actions we ought to focus on, in order to keep the momentum going. Dr. Bruce recommended that for every milestone we reach (e.g., a revision of the mission statement, etc.), we invite all faculty, via email, to participate in a web discussion forum, as a way to solicit feedback on our work. Dr. Konz suggested that we might hold more forums, but that we should carefully discuss the reasons underlying faculty participation in the first forum. He noted that, depending on faculty concerns and interest, we might have to consider different sorts of forums. Thus, if faculty participation in the first forum was motivated by anxiety over change, we might follow up with another general information forum. On the other hand, if faculty were motivated by feelings that we might be able to innovate and reshape our existing program, then our next forums might focus on the sorts of curricular structures or components faculty would like to explore. It was generally agreed that the first forum was successful.

4. APC Report: The Status of General Education at UNCA: A Summary Report by APC—We began to discuss the APC summary report. Most of the discussion centered on the report’s contention that the current General Education program has no vision. Dr. Lee said that this was a very important point and that we need to be clear about the criteria that reflect General Education courses as opposed to courses in the major. Many members observed that the skills domain in the Goals statement was one way to establish criteria for courses included in the General Education curriculum. Dr. Katz pointed out that structure has implications for operationalizing General Education curricula. For example, our current distribution model, in which there are no prerequisites for General Education courses, focuses the criteria on intro-level courses in which students study basic concepts in a range of disciplines. Other program models structure General Education differently. For example, in addition to the major, Bates College requires students to take a set of core courses common to all students and then develop an interdisciplinary topic-oriented program of study, in which they take courses outside their major and produce a substantive project designed in consultation with an advisor. This sort of program would have different criteria for what constitutes a General Education course.

Dr. Konz observed that we are doing a good job of laying out a vision for General Education, especially as it is articulated in the second paragraph of our mission statement. Dr. Friedenberg pointed out that what was missing was the operational criteria (e.g., prerequisites, the question of multidisciplinarity, etc.) for what constitutes a Gen Ed course.

We discussed a variety of programs and program structures, including those at Bates, Goddard, and University of Rochester, commenting on how program structure would impact both the criteria underlying General Education courses and the "vision" underlying the curriculum as a whole. We talked about how some structures would facilitate interest among students and might assist in faculty development (and even offer faculty some scholarship opportunities).

Drs. Friedenberg and Moseley noted that the Articulation Agreement might create difficulty for certain innovations in General Education. It was suggested that Dr. Katz talk with both the Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor to get a better sense of how much latitude we will have, given the current shape of the Articulation Agreement.

We agreed to pick up this discussion in our next meeting.

5. Our next GERTF meeting will be Wednesday, 3 October, 4:30-5:30 pm, in the Red Oak Room.