General Education Committee Minutes 11/15/04

Members Present: J. Eglin, K. Hill, S. Kalm, T. Manuel S. Miller, G. Smith

Members Absent/Excused: S. Greymorning, D. Pletscher, R. Welsh, A. Walker-Andrews

Ex-Officio Present: L. Carlyon

Chair Eglin called the meeting to order at 3:13 PM.

The minutes from 11/8/04 were approved with a slight correction.

Communication:

§ The Board of Regents meets on campus this Wednesday through Friday. There are a few items of interest. It would be useful to have a member of the committee at the Academic/Student Affairs Meeting on Wednesday from 9:15 to 11:15 AM. Thursday there is a 7 AM breakfast with the Faculty Representatives and the Board of Regents in the Alumni Board Room. The full Board of Regents convenes at 8:00 AM. There will be a report on Shared Leadership Initiatives and from President Dennison. Thursday at 12:40 PM there is a meeting with faculty and students in UC 326. This meeting is at the request of the Regents with regard to the proposed transferable GPA.

§ The committee will meet next week.

Discussion Items:

§ The committee should compare The University of Montana requirements with the requirements of the other universities in the system. It will also be useful to review the Academic Plan to aid in the creation of a general education statement of purpose.

Chair Eglin noticed that the other campuses seem to be clearer about their general education requirements. The 27 credits specified in the catalog does not include core competencies. There are up to 39 credits with the competencies, plus the upper-division writing requirement totals 42 credits.

Any model selected should be very specific and not create artificial separation such as competencies and perspectives, but rather individual fields within general education.

The A,B, C categories in the general education program prior to 1999 was problematic for advising. Reduction in minimum credits stemmed from the semester conversion. All MUS campuses are now on semesters and most institutions are as well. There are still a few schools with quarter systems which can create difficulties with how 2 credit courses figure into general education requirements.

One concern with regard to a core general education system is that departments have not been hiring faculty based on that model.

The model proposed by the General Education Task Force will not cut the number of courses. The revised perspectives are very generalized and vague.

The Task Force talked about radical models and about how to expand on what is unique to UM, such as Environmental Studies and Native American Studies. At one point they had considered competencies across the curriculum, which would require new courses to be developed. This model had a lot of integrated curriculum.

Associate Registrar Carlyon recommends that the program have the same requirements for all students because they tend to frequently change majors. Also, the committee must consider how new requirements would transition into the old. Perhaps the current general education criteria could be defined better and include how much of the course must adhere to the criteria. Maybe lower division courses need to be strengthened and restricted from a narrow focus.

§ The committee should start with a developing a general education philosophy as well as what pulls the experience together for students.

The meeting was adjourned.