Wednesday, December 16, 2009
December 16, 2009, Ad Hoc Committee Meeting
Present: Chris Cobb, Janet Fore, Kitty Green, Joe Incandela, Michael Kramer, Nancy Nekvasil, Don Paetkau, Laurel Thomas
Minutes of Dec. 2, 2009 were approved as written.
Joe announced the Student Government is considering whether to endorse the new GenEd Curriculum. He also reported on the December 9th presentation about GenEd governance to the Academic Affairs Council and briefed the Committee about discussions relating to the number of lab science courses that will be required in the new GenEd.
The rest of the meeting was devoted to forming both a schedule and a plan for the work to be done over break up until the next Faculty Development Day on Friday, January 8, 2010. What we hope to give our colleagues on that day is an understanding of the entire new GenEd curriculum, though we will almost certainly not have drafted all the rules that will eventually become part of the new program. We will need to refine the learning outcomes and skills, settle issues leftover from the November GenEd lunch relating to integrative learning, and take up the matter of whether all students will have the same GenEd requirement.
The Committee spent some time on the latter topic. We discussed, among other things, what “the same GenEd requirement means.” In particular, it need not mean that same number of courses that carry a GenEd designation. Instead, it could mean that all students satisfy the same GenEd learning outcomes, though some may do so in majors courses. Ultimately, we thought that we needed to try to put the whole program together before we came to any conclusions on this matter. It was noted that many departments will need both time and help adapting courses currently counting both for GenEd credit and for a major (for example, first-year majors’ courses in Chemistry and Biology). Perhaps the implementation team for the new GenEd program could work with these departments during that phase of the process.
In light of the above, we came up with rough agendae for our all-day meetings on December 22nd and January 5th.
Finally, Joe thanked both Nancy Nekvasil and Charlie Peltier (in absentia) for their service on the Ad Hoc Committee since its formation in 2006 and wished them well as they begin their spring sabbaticals. The Committee affirmed these sentiments with applause.
Minutes of Dec. 2, 2009 were approved as written.
Joe announced the Student Government is considering whether to endorse the new GenEd Curriculum. He also reported on the December 9th presentation about GenEd governance to the Academic Affairs Council and briefed the Committee about discussions relating to the number of lab science courses that will be required in the new GenEd.
The rest of the meeting was devoted to forming both a schedule and a plan for the work to be done over break up until the next Faculty Development Day on Friday, January 8, 2010. What we hope to give our colleagues on that day is an understanding of the entire new GenEd curriculum, though we will almost certainly not have drafted all the rules that will eventually become part of the new program. We will need to refine the learning outcomes and skills, settle issues leftover from the November GenEd lunch relating to integrative learning, and take up the matter of whether all students will have the same GenEd requirement.
The Committee spent some time on the latter topic. We discussed, among other things, what “the same GenEd requirement means.” In particular, it need not mean that same number of courses that carry a GenEd designation. Instead, it could mean that all students satisfy the same GenEd learning outcomes, though some may do so in majors courses. Ultimately, we thought that we needed to try to put the whole program together before we came to any conclusions on this matter. It was noted that many departments will need both time and help adapting courses currently counting both for GenEd credit and for a major (for example, first-year majors’ courses in Chemistry and Biology). Perhaps the implementation team for the new GenEd program could work with these departments during that phase of the process.
In light of the above, we came up with rough agendae for our all-day meetings on December 22nd and January 5th.
Finally, Joe thanked both Nancy Nekvasil and Charlie Peltier (in absentia) for their service on the Ad Hoc Committee since its formation in 2006 and wished them well as they begin their spring sabbaticals. The Committee affirmed these sentiments with applause.
# posted by Joe Incandela @ 1:12 PM 
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