General Education Committee Minutes

March 22, 2004 in the Badlands Room of the Memorial Union

Participants: Virginia Clark Johnson, Brian Dougan, Bob Harrold, Kate Haugen, RaNelle Ingalls, Marina Ioudina, Char Myhre, Larry Peterson, Doug Rymph, Grant Streimer, Orven Swenson, Kristi Wold-McCormick.

Unable to attend: James R. Larson, Phil McClean, Justin Wageman.

Peterson called the meeting to order at 3:03 p.m. and asked for corrections, additions, or approval of the minutes of the March 1, 2004 meeting. A motion to approve the minutes as distributed (Harrold/Streimer) was unanimously approved. Bob Harrold volunteered to serve as recorder for this meeting.

The agenda item of discussion of committee membership for the next academic year and election of a chair for the 2004-2005 academic year was moved to later in the meeting.

Larry provided a summary of previous discussions of the proposal by faculty from the Department of English to revise the General Education requirements for the writing component of the Communication Category (C) and update of conversations held since the previous meeting. The faculty from the Department of English will work with the members of the General Education Committee to work on criteria for courses that require ENGL 120 as a prerequisite. The Fall, 2005 semester has been identified as a target date for starting the new profile of courses in the writing component. This date is expected to provide an opportunity for discussions with Deans and Chairs/Heads about the new requirements. English will have update material for us to consider at our next meeting.

Larry provided a handout identifying reports received (or not received) from departments and programs about integration of general education categories 9 (computer usage), 10 (communication activities) and 11 (comprehension of personal and professional ethics) integrated into the major and the capstone course. Seven departments have not filed reports and the decision was made to progress with the information that is available.

Bill Slanger (Office of Institutional Research and Analysis) has provided updated information about the Academic Profile test to be administered to seniors. Larry and Bob will serve as proctors on April 17th and 24th.

A petition to waive UNIV 189 was reviewed. A motion to deny the petition (Swenson/Harrold) was approved without opposition.

Information distributed at previous meetings on the review of UNIV 189 requested by Provost Schnell was summarized and discussed. After consideration of alternative approaches, it was moved (Peterson/Swenson) that the Subcommittee on Social and Behavioral Sciences, Quantitative Reasoning, and Wellness and representatives of Student Affairs and the Library would review the information and develop a recommendation to bring to the full committee. After future discussion by the members of the General Education Committee, a summary will be forwarded to Provost Schnell.

The Science and Technology Subcommittee presented recommendations on two courses to the committee. Motions to approve PLSC 210 "Horticulture Science" as a new course with approval for Outcomes 2 and 5 (Harrold/Haugen) and five year renewal of ARCH 322 "Architectural History II" for Outcomes 2 and 6 (Harrold/Dougan) were passed without dissent.

There was no report from the Humanities and Fine Arts and Communication Subcommittee.

The Social and Behavioral Sciences, Quantitative Reasoning, and Wellness Subcommittee recommended that GEOG 161 "World Regional Geography" receive approval after a five year review with Outcomes 3 and 6. A motion to that effect (Peterson/Streimer) was passed with unanimous approval.

A draft rubric for Outcome #4 developed by Justin Wageman was distributed.

Discussion of committee membership for the next academic year was revisited. Larry Peterson was nominated to serve as Committee Chair for the 2004-2005 academic year (Swenson/Rymph) and a unanimous ballot was cast. Larry thanked the members of the committee for their confidence and indicated that a chair-elect would need to be elected during the next semester.

Kristi Wold-McCormick discussed the use of a spreadsheet to track progress of individual courses that have either received approval or are undergoing review. A copy of a spreadsheet used by the Academic Affairs Committee was circulated as an example. Larry indicated that it would be helpful to have the information available on the committee's Web site. The members of the committee were receptive to campus access to information on courses that have been approved or have been received for review. There was common agreement that the information should be made available for access by committee members and the campus community.

There was no additional business to be conducted and the meeting was adjourned at 4:08 p.m.

The next meeting of the General Education Committee will be Monday, May 3 at 3 p.m. in the Badlands Room of the Memorial Union.