General Education Committee Meeting
Thursday, October 7, 2004, 8:00 a.m., Meadowlark Room, Memorial Union

Present: Michael Christoffers, Robert Harrold, Kate Haugen, Ranelle Ingalls, Marina Ioudina, Char Myhre, Larry Peterson, Doug Rymph, Orven Swenson, Robyne Williams, Kristi Wold-McCormick

The meeting was called to order at 8:05 a.m. by Larry Peterson. Orv Swenson served as recorder for the meeting.

1.  Harrold/Myhre moved to approve the revised rubrics for General Education Outcomes 2, 3, 4, 5, & 7. Motion passed.

2.  Williams/Haugen moved to approve the revised preface for rubrics. The amended motion and edited preface passed as follows:

• "The rubrics for the General Education Outcomes are guidelines. They are neither all-inclusive, rigid rules, nor a scorecard. The Committee does not expect evidence for each possible aspect of an outcome listed in each rubric, however, evidence for some of the criteria will be needed. The Committee designed these rubrics to promote consistency in its evaluation of courses and to assist faculty who are submitting courses for review. They will be used by the Committee in its evaluation, and should be submitted by faculty as part of course packets.”
• Haugen/Williams motion to add an additional line to the rubrics: "Other—please specify" was passed.
• The instructions for submitting 5 year reviews will be reviewed at the next meeting.

3.  Subcommittee reports

• The UNIV 189 Subcommittee presented the results of their meeting. An open meeting will be held at two different times with recent instructors of the course. The meeting will have two purposes. The first will be to hear from the instructors about what they see as the strengths and weaknesses of the course as currently taught. The second purpose will be to get their reactions to some questions we have: “Should the course be for two credits?” “Since 60% of incoming students change their majors, should all sections of the course be university-wide rather than college specific?” “Should the course be offered online?” “Should there be a common reading for all sections that would introduce students to the life of the mind?” “Should all sections be approximately the same size?” We will also consider having focus groups for freshmen and sophomores, juniors and seniors, and for alumni to get feedback on UNIV 189.

4.  Upcoming agenda items

• A communications group consisting of representatives from English and Communications has been working on and will submit a suggested revised Rubric for Outcome 1
• The Humanities and Fine Arts Committee is working on a revised Rubric for Outcome 6

5.  New business

• Each subcommittee will prepare WEBFAT questions based on rubrics for their assigned Outcomes to be used in Formative Assessments.
• The department submissions on integrated general education and capstone reviews will be integrated into our subcommittee structure for review. The initial goal is to do an inventory of what's there.
• GERTA submissions will be reviewed by the appropriate subcommittee.

6. Char volunteered to be the recorder for next meeting.