General Education Committee
Minutes
May 6, 2003
2:00, University Chamber, Memorial Union

Present: Virginia Clark Johnson, Robert Harrold, Kate Haugen, Phil McClean, Char Myhre, Larry Peterson, Doug Rymph, Orven Swenson, Justin Wageman, Kristi Wold-McCormick.

1. Minutes
The minutes of the previous meeting of April 22, 2003 were approved as distributed in a revised version emailed on April 28, 2003. Larry served as the recorder for today's meeting.

2. Student Petitions
The student petition from a student for a cultural diversity waiver was approved. The student petition from a student about the science and technology requirement was amended to substitute her computer science courses at Northwest Tech for CSCI 116 (4 credits). Student should be informed that he/she still needs 3 credits, including a lab, in the science and technology category.

The student petition from a student to waive the requirement for UNIV 189 because he/she wanted to save money was denied by a 4 to 3 vote. The committee discussed the possibility of putting a hold on students' transition to sophomore status until they had either completed the course or challenged it.

3. Subcommittee Reports
The full Committee approved the recommendations from the Humanities and Fine Arts and Communication Subcommittee to add the Diversity category to the following courses that had previously been recommended for continued approval for general education with changes in outcomes:

The full Committee approved the recommendation from the Humanities and Fine Arts and Communication Subcommittee to deny the Diversity category to the following course that had previously been recommended for continued approval for general education.

Larry will contact the instructor to urge her to resubmit the course next fall. He will provide her with the feedback from the subcommittee that includes information on how other instructors revised their materials.

The full Committee approved the recommendations from the Humanities and Fine Arts and Communication Subcommittee to add the Diversity category to the following course that been recommended for approval as a new general education course.

The Social and Behavioral Sciences, Quantitative Reasoning, and Wellness Subcommittee reported that the instructor for following course still had not submitted sufficient evidence to recommend the course to the full committee. The subcommittee distributed copies of the most recent email to the course instructor and the department chair. According to the chair, the course will be renamed and have a different course description next fall.

The Science and Technology Subcommittee had no report.

4. Inventory and Review of Embedded GE Outcomes
The committee discussed the proposed Inventory and Review of GE Outcomes embedded in majors-- 1) Computer Usage Integrated In All Majors; 2) Communication Activities in Upper Division Major Courses; 3) Comprehension of Personal and Professional Ethics Integrated in Majors; and 4) Capstone Experience in All Majors. Members had previously received material on capstone courses from the 1996 Assessment News and from the discussions of the General Education Committee in 1992.

The Committee agreed that Larry will draft and circulate a memo to all department chairs. The memo will note that we are conducting an inventory now, and we will be following this up later with a review of these embedded outcomes. The memo will let them know that we will be asking for more information at a later date. Larry (and any others!) will try to locate guidelines and definitions that we can examine as we develop our own guidelines and definitions for these embedded GE outcomes.

Submitted by
Larry Peterson
May 9, 2003