GENERAL EDUCATION Members:– Rick Davis (Associate Provost for Undergraduate
Education, CVPA, July-Dec, 2011), Janette Muir (AP-UG Chair, beginning January
2012). Mack Holt (CHSS), Rick Diecchio
(COS), Kim Eby (Associate Provost/Center for
Teaching Excellence), Douglas Eyman (CHSS), Frank
Allen Philpot (SOM), Kamaljeet Sanghera
(VSE), Hugh Sockett (CHSS), Cliff Sutton (VSE), Carol
Urban (CHHS), and Peter Winant (CVPA). General
Education Coordinator: Marcy Glover.
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
UNIVERSITY GENERAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE
April 15, 2012
The University General
Education Committee continued to work vigorously this academic year on the
following items:
·
strategic thinking about the future of general
education, both at Mason and in a national context of comparable universities.
·
considering new course proposals for inclusion
in the general education inventory
What follows will expand
a bit on each of the bullets above, but first there are a couple of compulsory
reporting points included in our committee’s charge from the Senate.
1.
Proficiency/placement exams: Statistics are characteristically incomplete
as of this date; we will submit an addendum early in the fall semester with
these data. We expect to receive ENGH
101/302 by June.
2. Changes in the
criteria for general education: There were no substantive changes in
overall criteria; however we will be looking at these issues more carefully in
the next year.
Gen Ed learning
outcomes, and assessment process:
The College of Science completed
their discussion/revision of the SLOs in the Natural Science area. The committee thanks Rick Diecchio
and the COS faculty for taking on this difficult task. A portfolio review of this category is
scheduled for Fall 2012. Discussions
continue regarding the assessment of SLOs and for the Quantitative Reasoning,
Written Comm, and Oral Comm
categories.
The Board of Visitors
has requested that the committee re-evaluate the Global Understanding category.
It is currently under review and will be further assessed in 2013.
Course Proposals:
The committee considered
15 and approved 10 new courses for the general education
inventory, with the others being sent back for revision or clarification.
We expect resubmission of the majority of the returned courses.
Areas to be considered
in the 12-13 Academic year:
NCLC Cornerstones courses
– two still under review.
Student Learning
Outcomes for general education as whole.
Ways to slightly
restructure General Education so that students make better, more intentional choices
about the courses they select to fulfill these requirements.
Continue/sustained
discussion about the new critical thinking rubric and how to include/use
in/with the general education curriculum.
CEIE agreement - This is
a 3 credit waiver for CEIE majors due to an increase in their major
requirements. The waiver will be for
either Arts, Global Understanding or Western Civilization. So far very few students have needed the
waiver.
Change in committee
structure to reflect term limits.
Final Highlights:
Mason was awarded the
2011 Exemplary Program AGLS Award for Improving General Education. Drs. Rick Davis, Karen Gentemann,
and Ying Zhou presented a panel discussion at the annual meeting to discuss our
assessment process, for which we earned the award.
Mason’s General
Education assessment process is attracting national interest. To date, three
different institutions have contacted the Undergraduate Education Office to
enquire about general education and the portfolio assessment process.