3) What does not work in our current General Education program? (set 4)

Four major areas were mentioned specifically. 1) Although Arts 310 seems unique and distinctive, its purpose was not understood. It was mentioned that "Art as a way of knowing" was a theme for the course, but more members agreed that the course lacked clarity and defined objectives.  It also needs to change with the changing student population that has had more exposure to the arts than past groups. 2) The second major problem was the lack of electives and flexibility in some programs across campus.  Students should have a right to a few electives. 3) The third  issue was the lack of criteria for the two general education social science courses, and the interdisciplinary science course.  The mix of majors and outsiders in these courses does not work well. General Education courses should be focused on themes or topics as opposed to a full introduction to a discipline's methodology.  4) The final issue raised was that the writing skills of many seniors were not acceptable.

As faculty, we need more clarity from Health and Fitness about what they are doing in their courses.

The following components raise problems/issues:

a) Arts:  Great idea, but dismal execution.  Nobody likes it.  There is zero positive feedback from students about either Arts 310 or the Arts labs. Arts 310 has an unworkable, disorganized and disjointed structure and seems to be irrelevant to our students.  There is no value in the current execution of the requirement.  Some of the problems in Arts 310 are due to it being designed by committee and held hostage to scheduling of artists.

 b) Humanities: Humanities courses also suffer from being designed by committee.  Seeking consensus among faculty is not the best way to design a course.  This seems to be a particular problem in Humanities 414, where there is not a self-evident canon, as in 124.  There is a need for clarity of the goals of courses, especially Humanities 414.  The historical arrangement of courses makes it difficult for faculty from outside the Humanities division to participate.  Faculty from outside of Literature and History are disenfranchised through intellectual tyranny which this historical arrangement encourages.  There should not be adjunct or junior faculty co-ordinating Humanities courses. The Humanities program is bankrupt and needs to be wholly revised.

 c) Language:  Our current classes aren=t working.  We spend far too much time in our classes teaching students the fundamentals of writing: grammar, sentence and paragraph construction.  The goal of the Language requirement should be to first teach the fundamentals of writing and then focus on the process of writing.  In other words, focus on competency in the skills of writing.

 d) Natural Science:  The interdisciplinary science course is hard for transfers to receive credit for.  The 5 hour lab science course is too much--most transfers only bring a 4 hour course.  It is difficult for our students to fit it in their schedules and graduate on time.

We often think of gen ed as a “static” thing; we should instead perceive it as something that evolves and accommodates changes in learning styles and technology.

The lack of a central gen ed coordinator makes for decreased focus on gen ed; continual examination would be effective.

Often  people are not accountable – that is, students and departments – for why we do what we do, why we cover what we cover, why we miss certain areas (such as a library component in a class), why some classes are considered gen ed and others aren’t – is there a way to make all this less “amorphous”?  (Merritt noted that departments are responsible for showing proof of their majors’ competency, etc).

Students don’t necessarily connect the term “research” with the library – ie, “Research Methods” – can this be countered?

Limitations to consider:  1) students who place out of Lang 102, a class where integrated library research works well and perhaps most naturally; 2) increasingly “bloated majors”; 3) transfer students we often miss in terms of placement into FYE-like courses.

There are 3 basic problems:  a) There are too many requirements, the large burden causes problems for the majors; b) “Requiring” faculty to teach outside their discipline is not effective; c) Specific GE  science courses are not introducing students to scientific ways of thought.