General Education Committee Meeting Minutes
Thursday, October 14, 2004, 8:00 a.m., Meadowlark Room, Memorial Union

Present: Virginia Clark Johnson, Michael Christoffers, Robert Harrold, Kate Haugen, Ranelle Ingalls, Marina Ioudina, Sudhir Mehta, Char Myhre, Larry Peterson, Doug Rymph, Orven Swenson, Cindy Urness, Robyne Williams

The meeting was called to order at 8:05 a.m. by Larry Peterson. Char Myhre served as recorder for the meeting. The next meeting will be held in Minard Hall, Room 407, on October 21 st at 8:30 am.

1.  The minutes for the September 30, 2004 meeting are in process. Harrold/Urness moved to approve the minutes for the October 7 th meeting. Minutes were approved as emailed.

2.  The suggested revised General Education Outcome 1 rubric from the communications group that was emailed to the committee October 12 th was discussed. Concerns were expressed with the changed wording of the outcome and that the explanation of the outcome was confusing. L. Peterson will take the notes from the discussion and present a revised rubric to the committee for the October 21 st meeting.

3.  The University Senate action on October 11, 2004 on the proposed vertical writing requirement was discussed. The Senate's unofficial vote appeared to favor option 2 requiring all students to complete an upper division writing course, but they tabled official action until after the senators have time to talk to their constituents.

After further discussion it was decided to take a two-pronged approach:

• Send an email telling departments/Senators who to contact for further information.
• L. Peterson will contact Dale Sullivan to request he prepare further details that could be shared at the next Senate meeting.

4.  No student petitions were presented.

5.  Subcommittee reports

• Humanities, Fine Arts and Communication

L. Peterson presented a handout detailing the subcommittee's report. Two courses were discussed and voted on:

The subcommittee recommended approval of French 380 with categories A & D and outcomes 3 & 6. Motion by Peterson/Harrold to approve passed.

The subcommittee recommended Education 489 not be approved at this time because of its applied professional orientation. Motion by Peterson/Swenson to not approve this course passed.

• Science and Technology – No report

• Social and Behavioral Sciences, Wellness, and Quantitative Reasoning – No report

• UNIV 189 Subcommittee
  L. Peterson reported that the discussions with instructors of the course are scheduled for 4:00 pm in South Engineering 314 on October 26 & 27. Volunteers for assisting and taking notes on the discussions for those days are L. Peterson and C. Urness on 10/26 and R. Ingalls and R. Williams on 10/27. S. Mehta is available for both days. Others will come as schedules permit.
  
  Provost Schnell has approved $150 - $200 for incentives for student focus groups. L. Peterson is working with Carolyn Schnell to develop the questions. Groups will be selected randomly from students on campus to include a mixture of sophomores through seniors who have taken the course.

6.  Upcoming agenda items

• Subcommittees should prepare questions that can be used in Formative Assessments based on the rubrics for their assigned Outcomes.

• The department submissions on integrated general education and capstone experiences will be integrated into our subcommittee structure for review. At the next meeting L. Peterson will bring a list of departments and they will be divided among the subcommittees for the reviewing process. The initial goal is to do an inventory of what's there. L. Peterson will pick a representative sample of what has been submitted to develop an evaluation rubric to be used by the subcommittees.

• The committee needs to revise the general education application forms for new courses and for the five year reviews. It was suggested that the forms include questions on the availability of web-based versions of the courses and whether or not the requirements and outcomes for the courses are the same. B. Harrold volunteered to assist L. Peterson with revisions for the forms to present to the committee.

• The Humanities, Fine Arts and Communication subcommittee is working on a revised Rubric for Outcome 6 (left from 10/7 minutes and on the subcommittee's handout)

7.  Michael Christoffers volunteered to be the recorder for the October 21 st meeting. There will not be a meeting on October 28 th .