Curtis noted the Freshman Satisfaction Survey result that "Many of our students (50%) are not finding their classes very interesting." Given that many of these classes are general education classes, this statistic is of interest to us.

There will be no meeting on Thursday this week. The meeting time might be a time that the writing committee could meet. The writing committee should be small (about 3 people), doing a service for the rest of the committee of writing up the perspectives. Their work is to put in writing a statement about each of the perspectives areas, the role of the perspectives, the policy about use of first courses in general education, and rationalization for the organization of the perspectives. This will be added to the statement about the core that we already have. Our present discussions of upper level component and upper level electives provide an opportunity to reclaim our earlier belief that general education should cover all four undergraduate years. We also need to see the whole program, hopefully to see that it is larger than the sum of its parts and that it is true to the Fundamental Principles. Daryl and Barbara volunteered, and Bruce said that John had indicated he would work on this group also. Nory has offered to edit and polish as needed to put diverse writing styles of the group into a somewhat coherent whole. Curtis cautioned the group that this is not a good time for radical new ideas to appear, and that they should stay oriented toward the outcome of a coherent picture of the program.

Discussion turned to Bruce's draft of a policy on use of general education courses as first courses in the major. Bruce's policy begins with the philosophy that all students should complete 42 hours of liberal studies courses not prescribed by their major and independent of their major program. George questioned the way that math and science courses are influenced by this policy--since these requirements can be met by upper level courses based on a prerequisite knowledge structure, these other courses, which may be "first courses" should be exempt from this philosophy (note that math is in the core, so not subject to the perspectives policy anyway). Students in George's program now take University electives for the hours freed by the upper level math and science courses. Under the new policy, these hours would have to be from the liberal arts. This is the "push" behind this policy. This policy would open up the possibility of a considerable variety of liberal arts and upper level electives. Do we need to limit these electives to liberal arts? No, but the courses need to be accepted as general education courses, require no prerequisites, and abide by other characteristics as decided by the general education authority. Upper level courses are a better place for an international issues component as students have a more sophisticated perspective and content may lend itself more easily to a global discussion. What about upper level science courses? They could be used as general education electives as long as they are not program requirements in the individual's major. JC was asked if he felt any better about the advising complexity presented by this policy; he is not sure yet.

Any applied program would have a "foot" in some discipline which would designate courses as requirements of the program (and remove them from the general education program for their majors), but would also provide a place for courses that could be general education electives to grow from. The pre-requisite restriction would keep courses that are too specific out of the electives pool. We must not look too literally at the breadth-versus-depth issue; courses that offer detail but do not require a pre-requisite structure should be suitable as a general education elective.

The committee is not yet ready to approve this policy. Barbara is concerned that students in science programs will be forced out into the liberal arts more than non-science students. She says we must be very specific about the wording of "…to meet a program requirement"; should this say "major, minor, or program requirement"? What about disciplinary focus areas in education? We must make sure this is stated comprehensively. What about tracks or concentrations? Bruce suggested being subtle and stating this as "…to meet a program's requirement" implying that any type of requirement of the program would be covered by this statement. George also reminded us that the variety of courses offered to create these general education electives might shrink over time; would there be enough choices for students in the long run? The policy seems to have most impact on the sciences. Would (for example) English majors be affected? Departments should think about the need for elective courses when they decide whether or not to use general education courses as first courses. The market for courses will drive the creation of upper level general education elective courses.

We need careful language for the "program requirement" statement. Several editing ideas were offered, and the policy statement was actually trimmed to be brief and concise. What about the Arts & Sciences BA degree requirement for a foreign language? This is a college requirement, not a program requirement, and is not of concern. Bruce thinks this policy will be controversial with the faculty, but that it is a discussion worth having. We must make sure that courses used for electives are interesting; the review and approval process for courses must have some teeth in it to make sure that courses have quality. Courses used as first courses are motivated to be interesting as they are a chance to attract majors to the discipline. Departments will lose this opportunity if they do not offer good courses.

When this policy is approved (and we are only discussing the policy, not the rationale or the principle), Bruce will write an introduction and tie the policy back to the Fundamental Principles. This will be a part of the introduction to the Perspectives and will be added to the writing committee's work. It will be part of a preamble that explains rationale for the Perspectives. Transfer students will benefit from this policy, as they will have upper level courses to use in completing their general education rather than being required to take 100 level general education courses. The success of this policy hinges on what is done in these elective courses!! Departments that do not already have upper level courses that have no pre-requisites will have to rethink their curricula--a good general education review should cause this to happen. The policy was approved as follows: "When a liberal studies course meets a program requirement, the credit hours from that course will not be counted toward the total of 42 liberal studies hours required of all students. The student may obtain the additional liberal studies hours to attain the full 42 hours required from liberal studies courses in any Perspectives area."

The discussion turned to the Humanities issue (after which we need to decide the upper level component, and we will be done except for the administrative component!). The fact that the freshman seminar is actually a Perspectives course, and will fulfill a Perspectives requirement, means that we actually have only a 39 hour program. What do we do with the remaining three hours? At one time, we decided to add another Humanities course, but we were unclear how this would be covered besides literature and F&P Arts. Then we began to consider an upper level integrative course, kind of a "capstone" for general education, which would also reclaim our upper level presence and tie together the whole program. There was a flurry of ideas about this upper level component, but we need to finish our discussion of the Humanities before we can decide on it for sure.

The Humanities requirement now is 3 hours in Fine & Performing Arts, with an active learning component. Details of this are up to the writing committee to finalize. The next three hours are to be a text-based course that would form a natural home for literature, but also philosophy and maybe literature courses from the modern foreign languages. Daryl had some misgivings about placing philosophy under literature, but not under a Humanities category. Considerations about this structure include: (1) the articulation agreement says that students must have a literature course, and our English department is an advocate of this being a separate category; (2) Once we said that the category would be Humanities rather than just Literature, we moved forward the importance of the content and approach of the courses that would serve to broaden the interpretation of literature. We can make the Humanities a text-based course with this broader interpretation of literature, or we can go back to having literature as a "check-off" type of requirement throughout the Perspectives (as it is now).

Barbara said that another option for Humanities is to simply say that there will be two courses (6 hours) taken from two different disciplines. The disciplines (departments) involved would be Philosophy & Religion, English, and MFL. If there is no upper level requirement then there is no motivation for students to wait till they are juniors or seniors to complete general education. The "get it out of the way" mentality would prevent many from waiting for the upper level courses, particularly in the highly structured majors. There would only be a small population of transfer students and those with full majors in the first two years who would wait for the upper level courses. We would like the upper level course to be on the "back end" of general education as the freshman seminar is on the front end; an integrative, closing experience including some overall evaluation of student experience. We could add a "check-off" statement that students must take an upper level course. What about the requirement that students take a literature class? That could be handled as it is now (across all P's), required in the Humanities, or not enforced (in which case some students would miss this experience).

If we have an upper level requirement, we must define what makes it "integrative"; the three hours would not be removed from the perspectives, but allowed to range over the whole set of Perspectives courses, depending on departmental offerings. If the three hours are put back into the Humanities requirement, what kind of courses would be used to meet the requirement? The Humanities would consist of literature, F&P Arts, and Humanities defined as religion, philosophy, MFL, and ASI (do we want to separate ASI from literature?). If we have this third Humanities requirement, we are asking a few, small departments to carry a load for the entire student population--is this feasible? While the new program is not limited to the course offerings of the old program in this area, it is limited by the number of departments that offer courses in these disciplines. Daryl asked what is the difference between literature and Humanities at this point, since we are using a broader definition of "literature"? Bruce said the distinction is whether literature is considered as literary analysis, or if it is interpreted more broadly. Daryl said we need to construct an argument for separating literature from the Humanities.

Are we asking the writing committee to make a case for a third course in Humanities? Social sciences must make a case for themselves as an area of study; Humanities is at the very heart of liberal studies. If we make a case for the third Humanities course, who will teach it? We are not a strongly humanities-based institution! Six hours of Humanities means mostly English department offerings and might look a lot like a six hour literature requirement; is this what we want? The other option is to make the extra three hours an upper level elective and give choices about the category in which it is taught. This also requires an integrative component; can we create enough sections of a small, upper level, integrative course each semester?

Respectfully submitted,

Nory Prochaska, recording secretary

Return to Minutes Menu