General Education Committee

Minutes

 

October 15, 2012

 

Present:          Mark Jacobson                                     Bernie Quetchenbach

                        Melinda Tilton                                     Kurt Toenjes

                        Rhonda Dillman                                  Mike Havens

                        Jennifer Lynn                                       Tom Regele

                        Mark Fenderson                                  Leanne Gilbertsen

                        Michael Scarlett                                   Elizabeth Fullon

                        TyRee Jenks                                        Daniel Barnhart (student)

                        Tasneem Khaleel (ex-officio)              Becky Lyons (ex-officio)

                        Rita Kratky (ex-officio)

 

Absent:           Patricia Nichols (excused)                      Abbas Heiat

 

Guests:           Ben Barckholtz                                    Kirtlye Schuman         

 

 

Mike Havens called the meeting to order at 2:36 p.m. in the Chancellor’s Conference Room.

 

The minutes of September 17 were accepted as presented.

 

I.          ITEM FOR INFORMATION

 

Item 12.b  REHA 201 Introduction to Diversity.  Change title to Introduction to Diversity in Counseling and change course description.

 

- Item 12.b was accepted for information by general consent.

 

II.        DISCUSSION/ACTION ITEMS

 

A.  New Representative to the Assessment and Accreditation Council (meets Wednesday afternoons once a month)

 

Dr. Havens noted that he attended the last meeting, since Dr. Toenjes was unable to due to his schedule.  Dr. Havens will continue to attend these meetings as there seems to be more involvement necessary than originally anticipated.

 

B.  Consulting with City College Gen Ed Department

 

When this committee was first formed, it was ad hoc and had minimal representation from those who teach Gen Ed courses.  Dean Khaleel decided that the committee ought to change its components.  The resulting committee had more influence on decision-making, assessment, and transferability issues.

 

So, are we adequately working with the City College Gen Ed Department?  We want to govern how Gen Ed works, not control the Department.  Perhaps we need more than one representative from the Department on the GEC, especially with the emphasis on Gen Ed at City College and number of Gen Ed courses they offer.  The Committee does not want to make decisions that affect the Department without properly discussing with them first.

 

Dr. Havens and Vice Provost Matt Redinger plan to meet with Rich Pierce, Chair of the Gen Ed Department at City College, to discuss these issues.

 

C.  New Assessment Opportunity:  How should we select students to participate in a new test?

 

The Provost Office has been able to gather funds to run a pilot project to test about 100 students using the Proficiency Profile by ETS.  We need a way to get a group of students who would give us valuable data, and we need to cover as many majors as possible.

 

We may never be able to test all of our students.  A testing of about 1,000 students will cost us around $25,000.

 

It was noted that the best way to get a sampling may be to have the students in one Gen Ed class take the test.  We would have an assortment of students, some of whom have taken most of their Gen Eds while some have taken none or just a few.  We can compare the test results among those students to illustrate that taking Gen Ed courses helps raise the test score.  If we can get that kind of data, it will be well worth the cost and will also solidify our assessment arguments.

 

The test is paper and pencil, multiple choice, and most of the tests take about 90 minutes, although they do offer one that is only 30 minutes.  The tests are used by nearly 500 different universities, so they are generally seen as adequate in covering the topics.  It is not known right now how many two-year schools use this test.  They do offer a writing component, but that greatly increases test processing time and it is probably better to get the students their scores as soon as possible.

 

The main reason we would use the ETS testing is to compare to our own internal measures, but they do offer external comparisons to similar universities.

 

The testing pilot project will occur in the Spring semester.  It was agreed BIOB 101 Discover Biology would make the best candidate because all students have to take it and there are many sections.  Also, some students put it off until the very end of their college career.

 

D.  Reducing Gen Ed to 30 Credits

 

The Chancellor would like us to discuss reducing Gen Ed to 30 credits.  We really need to know his reasons for this, because if he has good reason, we should do it.  However, moving to using the MUS Core is definitely not a good idea.  The MUS Core only requires one writing course, but we could add a requirement that students take one other writing course outside of Gen Ed.  However, this is difficult to implement.  The GEC would have to review each and every writing-intensive course, which is a very heavy-handed thing for the Committee to do.

 

E.  Writing Requirement:  How should we indicate the requirement on the plan of study?

 

If we decide we will require at least one writing course for every student, we could add a line to the advising sheets that students must take one WRIT course.

 

More discussion and a vote at the next meeting.

 

F.  Review of Gen Ed Courses for 2013-2015 Catalog

 

The Chairs have been notified they are to review their Gen Ed offerings for appropriateness.  About one third have reported back.

 

 

The meeting adjourned at 3:35 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted, Rita J. Rabe Meduna.