Saint Mary's College General Education

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

---

Joe met with Marc Belanger regarding going to Faculty Assembly for an endorsement of the Gen Ed Program plan as of Faculty Development Day in March. They discussed how to prepare faculty who did not attend FDD. While everything is on the blog, we may want to send out a summary before that Faculty Assembly meeting.

Joe also met with Katie Sullivan and Mark Abram-Copenhaver from Theatre, who missed the FDD. Their responses were very positive. Katie asked about the timeline for implementation.

We will meet with WOST 2/11, noon, in the Stapleton Conference Room. They were unable to meet with us last semester.

Joe attended the AAC&U Annual Meeting, American Conference of Academic Deans, in Seattle Jan 21-24. He attended sessions on ePortfolios, Integration, and Critical Thinking. AAC&U has a promising new project called, VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education)

Daniel attended the meeting of the Internationalization Lab. The group discussed whether to focus on internationalization in the major or in Gen Ed. At the next meeting, the group will draft a statement to come to Gen Ed, similar to follow-ups we received from our previous department cluster meetings.

Meeting for spring semester will be Thursdays, 12:30-2 pm, continuing to meeting in the President’s Conference Room in the Library.

The remainder of the meeting focused on follow up discussion of the FDD, what changes can we make that seem obvious?

1. Recommendation for a WOST affiliated course in the Middle of the Crossing. Rationale – the courses are not “typically taught” in one department. Is there a convergence of WOST courses and LO3? Further discussion will follow at our meeting with WOST on 2/11 about the placement and name.
   
   
2. Questions about the “blue bar” with “media literacy” in the upper left were discussed. Should it be “cultural literacy.” However, that seemed to have an old fashioned definition. Is there a problem that “media literacy” as a term has not been part of broader discussions until FDD? How can we best express the skills in the upper left bar?

Next meeting – Feb 5, 2009, 12:30-2 pm, Library Pres. Conf. Rm.