Saint Mary's College General Education

Present: Chris Cobb, Janet Fore, Kitty Green, Joe Incandela, Nancy Nekvasil, Patti Sayre

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I. Notes from the August 14, 2007 meeting were approved, with the provision that the description of the purpose of design teams would be expanded to indicate that they will be bringing the program design to the next level of specificity.

II. Joe reported that the invitation to Faculty Development Day would be sent via USPS mail this afternoon. The invitation will be extended to all full-time faculty and to the Cabinet.

III. The committee discussed design teams.

Each design team’s responsibilities will include

1. Reviewing the structure of requirements within their section and modifying it as needed;
   
2. Reviewing the description of their section of the model in order to achieve a final version;
   
3. Establishing outcomes for each requirement within their section that are linked to the principal liberal arts outcomes
   
4. When they are ready, creating and guiding the Phase 2 design teams for their section, who will be charged with selecting and/or designing the courses for the requirement and the specific outcomes that will fulfill the requirement.
   
   

It was agreed that the Phase 1 design teams should begin work in late September or early October, with the goal of completing at least Phase 1 of the design prior to the next Faculty Development Day in January, 2008. The committee hopes that some design teams will move faster than that.

The general education committee itself would coordinate the work of the design teams and be responsible for interim reporting to the faculty on the teams’ progress.

IV. The committee discussed how to facilitate the discussion of the liberal education outcomes on the Faculty Development Day. We considered how to make sure that the discussions were open and included the opportunity to discuss concerns about outcomes, in addition to a directed evaluation of the two sets of outcomes the committee will be presenting to the faculty.

V. The committee reviewed the texts of the models to make sure they are ready for FDD.

1. We decided not to include drafts of more specific outcomes in the materials which faculty would review on the FDD and vote on. They will be passed to the Phase 1 design teams for reference.
   
   
2. We edited the unfinished descriptions of the parts of the Integrative Core Sequence. Chris will type up the finished versions and circulate the new text for Model C to the committee via e-mail.
   
   
3. The question of new names for the models was raised, but not answered.
   

VI. The committee made a plan for running the activities for Faculty Development Day.

1. We decided to set up the room only with chairs around tables – no lecture hall seating needed.
   
   
2. We divided up responsibilities for presenting and for facilitating discussions as follows:
   
   
   
   • Chris will do the reports on the survey.
     
   • Nancy and Janet will give the report on the summer.
     
   • Kitty will present the liberal education diagram.
     Daniel will introduce the outcomes discussion and coordinate the group reports.
     
   • Joe will give background on integration of learning and will present the committee’s plan to move forward to a vote on the models.
     
   • Charlie will introduce the discussion of the models as structure for the integration of learning and coordinate the group reports.
     
   • Patti will present the plan for design teams and our request for faculty preferences on design team work.
     
   • Each of us will facilitate discussion at one table in the morning workshop on outcomes and at one table in the afternoon workshop on the models and the integration of learning.

VII. The committee scheduled its next meeting for 11 am on Tuesday, August 21. It should be a shorter meeting at which we go over what each of us is preparing for FDD.