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

1. Welcome

2. Pat McClellan, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, spoke to the Task Force about CTL’s areas of focus for the 2002-3 academic year. She noted that the GERTF revision of general education will involve faculty development and is eager to assist our effort through the resources the Center has to offer.

3. Mark Padilla, VCAA, spoke to the Task Force about the importance of its work. Increasingly, he noted, general education curricula are becoming central to the missions, recruitment efforts, and fundraising capabilities of liberal arts schools. This is especially critical for public liberal arts institutions such as UNCA. Dr. Padilla said that his office was ready to assist the work of GERTF. He also said that he was eager to see GERTF establish a set of guiding principles for the new General Education program at UNCA by the end of Fall 2002. He thought that a general plan—though possibly not every detail of the program—should be in shape by the end of Spring 2002.

The development of fiscal resources for the revised program will be crucial. Dr. Padilla has recruited Dr. John Stevens to work on a Academic Affairs project to develop both large grants to fund major structural, curricular programs and to identify smaller program-specific grants to fund components of these programs. The Development Office is closely involved in this effort.

Dr. Padilla has also discussed with Dr. Ron Manheimer, Director of the NC Center for Creative Retirement, ways of interlinking his Center with the General Education program in a revised curriculum. This might be an effective way to realize the Chancellor’s goal of making UNCA a truly intergenerational campus. Dr. Padilla suggested that one possibility for this purpose, though not the only one, might be to use clusters of Natural and Social Science courses developed around intergenerational concerns as a general education topic that students and community members could participate in together. In addition to its curricular impact, this idea might also help in developing resources from the senior community, in terms of fundraising, teacher recruitment, and more. Dr. Katz noted that we might use such a cluster arrangement to bring in many groups and constituencies such as the NCCCR. Courses within clusters could then be focused on specific topics: students could enroll according to their interests and faculty could develop general education courses in areas that were intellectually of interest to them. Dr. Padilla noted that we need not feel compelled to pursue this direction, but that it was one of many ideas that GERTF might explore.

Dr. Padilla thanked this group for its commitment and energy in approaching this revision of general education at UNCA. He said that he will look forward to our updates on a regular basis. Dr. Katz will be meeting regularly with him. Other members of GERTF should feel free to contact him about issues and ideas they may have.

4. Forums—There will be one student forum this semester and one in Spring 2003. Dr. Katz is working with Dr. Katie Peters, Director of the Humanities Student Association and other groups to set this up in the next few weeks. We will approach the meeting as we did the Listening Project. Maegan Spencer noted that we ought to put the results on the web so students can read them; also, she noted that we might develop a summary page for our site, so that students (and faculty and staff) might be able to get an idea of what we are doing without being overwhelmed with all the material that is posted there.

There will be two forums for faculty and staff this semester and two in the Spring. The design team will arrange these forums.

5. Process for the revision—The revision process will be conducted through the work of three teams (Resource Research, Curriculum Research, and Design), into which the Task Force has been divided. Dr. Katz handed out the Team rosters and general responsibilities. Also he handed out specific assignments to both the Resource and Curriculum Research Teams.

The GERTF as a whole will no longer meet every week. Rather, the Design Team will meet weekly and will request information from the Research Teams, when necessary to facilitate its work. Research Teams should report on issues, data, and other information in written form (in Word); sometimes these reports may find their way to the website, so that we can use the process to educate the campus community.

6. Resource acquisition—Dr Katz said that he is already working to identify funding opportunities for a revised curriculum. He has met with Dr. Padilla, Alex Comfort, and Joanne McKnight on developing grants for a new general education program, with one emphasis placed particularly on faculty development. Dr Katz will also be meeting soon with John Stevens about this.

7. Continuing full faculty engagement—We must continue our efforts to ensure that the revision process is faculty driven. GERTF members are encouraged to email Katz with any ideas for increasing faculty engagement.

8. Design Team agenda for Fall 2002—At this point the Task Force as a whole adjourned and the Design Team remained to discuss the agenda for Fall 2002. The Team indicated four areas that we will begin to address immediately: parameters for the revision discussions; the central issues, identified from the listening project, that must be addressed in the revision; the development, at the outset of our work, of more developed goals and criteria for general education components; and the process by which we will engage in the revision itself.

Design Team members will email Katz by Monday, 26 August, lists of central issues that were not identified in our initial conversation. Also, Drs. Krumpe and Konz will email Katz an outline of parameters for our discussion at next week’s meeting.

9. The next meeting of the Design Team will be next week, Wednesday, 28 August, at 4:30 pm in the Red Oak Room. Team members should be prepared to meet weekly.