Present—Konz, Krumpe, Ruiz, White-Carter, Katz.

1. Review of meeting with Dr. Padilla, VCAA; with John Stevens, Director of the Office for Sponsored Research; and with Dwight Mullen, Special Assistant to the Chancellor on Minority and Multicultural Affairs--Katz reviewed the meeting he had with the VCAA on 8.27.02. Katz and Dr. Padilla discussed the previous GERTF meeting. Katz suggested to Dr Padilla that a strategy of putting various parts of the curricular revision proposal before the Senate, in order to move things along, would lead to problems for a new general education program; Dr Padilla concurred. Katz also clarified with Dr Padilla that his idea of an intergenerational cluster of classes as part of general education was, in fact, meant to suggest that general education at UNCA might be arranged, in part, topically, wherein issues of intergenerational focus would be one of several topics under which we might offer clusters of courses.

Katz and Dr Padilla also discussed the issue of raising resources through grant writing that might be used to provide significant funds for faculty development, curricular development and other important needs.

In their discussion, Dr Padilla noted that the revision needs to address issues of balance among the various program elements in the general education curriculum.

Katz felt that this meeting was very productive.

Katz also met on 8.27.02 with Dr John Stevens, who is now directing the Office for Sponsored Research, in order to discuss future funding opportunities. Dr Stevens will come to speak to the Design Team later in the semester as our ideas about the revision become clearer. In addition, Katz has had a preliminary meeting with Dr. Dwight Mullen, the special assistant to the Chancellor on Minority and Multicultural Affairs, to discuss diversity in the general education curriculum.

2. Discussion of parameters—The Team discussed Parameter Issues, along with the "non-negotiables" and "preferences" submitted by each design team member with regard to future general education program components. At the close of this conversation, the Team had edited and added to the draft of Parameter Issues. The Team agreed that at our meeting next week we would begin working toward consensus on each proposed parameter for revision. When we were finished with this process, we will forward the document for the consideration by and input of the Task Force as a whole. Following this, we would put the draft of program parameters before the faculty as a whole, for further consideration and input.

We discussed the process by which the discussion of the draft parameters might be conducted among the Task Force as a whole. We need to ensure that this part of the process leads us forward toward the establishment of the program components and curricular architecture that will satisfy the requirements laid out in the parameters.

3. Communication of Design Team work to campus community—We briefly discussed the importance of continued communication with the campus community through the website, forums and, possibly, workshops. It was suggested that as soon as the Listening Project analysis was complete and our parameters were drafted, we might use these documents as the topic of a forum on the general education design. Drs Jeff Konz and Rebecca Bruce are at work on the Listening Project analysis.

4. Agenda for the next meeting—Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday, 4 September, at 4:30 pm in the Red Oak Room. Design Team members should bring the following to the meeting: (1) copies (off the website) of the Mission and Goals Statements; (2) copies (off the website) of the Directive Recommendations for Curriculum; and (3) the revised draft of Parameter Issues which will be forthcoming as an attachment. Our agenda will be to begin discussing and resolving our position on each parameter issue. The meeting adjourned at 5:45 pm.