Members Present: J. Eglin, S. Greymorning, K. Hill, S.
Kalm, D. Pletscher, G. Smith, R. Welsh
Members
Absent/Excused: T. Manuel, S. Miller, A. Walker-Andrews
Ex-Officio Present: L. Carlyon
Chair Eglin called the meeting to order at
The approval of the minutes was postponed.
Communication:
§
Chair
Eglin thanked
§
Chair
Eglin received a concern over the pending changes from the Regents. It seems that a critical factor for
consideration is a moving target. He
will be meeting with ECOS this Thursday to evaluate the committee’s charge and
discuss modifications that would then go to the Senate.
Discussion Items:
§
Chair Eglin asked whether there are aspects of UM’s
general education program that do not fit with the Regents core requirement. The
fact that the transferable core is not specifically defined is problematic. At UM not all social or natural science
courses meet general education requirements.
It is agreed that there needs to be some standard. The learning outcomes are not overly
specific. This could be an area where UM
could take the lead. The committee must consider the political
reality which mandates a system of interchangeable units. Part of the issue is that if students don’t
meet the entire core, their general education courses are evaluated
individually. If an in-state student is
missing one course from the core at one campus they should be missing one
course short at another campus within the Montana University System.
It was noted that students transfering from institutions outside of
One possibility is to have two levels of general education: the general program
and the deluxe program which outlines specific courses. The Provost favors a lower-division and
upper-division requirement. Currently
the only upper-division aspects of the program are the writing profeciency
assessment and the upper-division writing requirement.
The problem is that there are upper and lower division courses in all the
perspectives. The core policy seems to
create an incentive for students to complete their general education in their
first two years. This is problematic in
some of the professional programs and sciences because of the foundation and
prerequisite courses required with the major.
Often students are taking general education courses in the junior year,
when their schedule has more room.
When students take general education courses is less important that what
they learn from the program. This makes
the preamble important.
The meeting was adjourned.