Saint Mary's College General Education

Present: Chris Cobb, Janet Fore, Kitty Green, Joe Incandela, Nancy Nekvasil, Daniel Party, Charlie Peltier, Patti Sayre

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Minutes of the previous meeting were approved.

Future Meetings
The dates and times for the next two meetings were set: December 13, from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Friday, January 5, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the President’s Conference Room in the library. Kitty Green volunteered to record minutes for this meeting and Joe Incandella indicated a tape recorder had been ordered to facilitate keeping minutes. He also reported that he had spoken with SAC and they were amenable to working with the committee as needed.

Communication
The committee sees that a blog is an excellent way to communicate its deliberations and to invite faculty participation in its work. Considerable discussion took place regarding the advantages and disadvantages of an internal vs. public blog. The committee agreed that barring difficulties (spam or uninvited postings), it preferred the public blog. Joe will be the webmaster.

Individuals/Groups to be consulted
Joe offered a beginning list of possible individuals or groups for consideration. A number of individuals and groups were added to the list. Some discussion took place around the structure and sequencing of meetings. It was determined that this conversation was premature and should occur after the Faculty Development Day prior to the beginning of classes in January.

Faculty Development Day: January 12,2007
The committee chose a date for the Faculty Development Day and discussed what it hopes to see happen on January 12. Two objectives emerged:

1. Clarification of the goals of General Education using

• The current Bulletin,
  
• The 12 threads from the HLC Self Study,
  
• The goals from the General Education Strategic Task Force
  
• The results of the Faculty Development Day in August 2006, and
  
• The material used by 1st Year Studies
  

2. Exploration of three (or more) models of General Education, including but not
limited to

• The current model in use at Saint Mary’s
  
• The model proposed by the General Education Task Force
  
• The model under consideration at Harvard
  

It was agreed upon that minutes from this meeting should be posted to the blog as quickly as possible in hopes that faculty would read and begin thinking about the objectives for the Faculty Development Day. Posting would include links to the sources mentioned. The committee brainstormed possible format for the day, essentially exploring the goals in the morning and the models after lunch.

Further discussion of January 12th Faculty Development Day will take place at the next meeting. The meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.