Overview

Following a unanimous vote of the University Senate at its March 17th meeting on a motion to approve the document “Design Principles of General Education,” the Senate Council Chair and Provost met to chart the way forward in the four-year campus discussion on reform of the current University Studies Program. The faculty and administration are of one mind on general education reform — the important work ahead must proceed at a pace that ensures ample opportunities for thorough faculty deliberation while leading to timely approval of a new general education curriculum by the University Senate.

The Provost and Senate Council Chair have jointly appointed a new general education steering committee and charged the committee to assume responsibility for the overall coordination of the reform effort going forward, including the following specific tasks:

1. to develop a set of learning outcomes for general education consistent with the recently approved "Design Principles of General Education," and to vet those learning outcomes with the college- and campus-level faculty councils;
2. to articulate the major components of a revised general education curriculum, which, in sum, address the overall learning outcomes of general education as determined by the process in item #1 above;
3. to establish and monitor, in close consultation with the Provost and Senate Council Chair, the curricular faculty teams that will be responsible for designing any new courses identified in item #2 above; and
4. to work closely with the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness in developing the processes for both the systematic assessment of the learning outcomes of general education and the ongoing curricular improvement of general education.

A calendar on general education reform, the steering committee membership and its charge (above) have been approved by the Senate Council.