Genereal Education Council - Minutes of July 14, 2006

Present: Scott Campbell, Joe Moxley, Greg Paveza, Suzanne Perry-Casler, Bob Potter (chair), Drew Smith

Ex-officio/Guests: Terri Flateby, Sean Gilmore, Neil Gomes, Janet Moore

The meeting was called to order at 9:00am.

1. Assessment methods in General Education for the past five years were discussed. The process has involved assessment of students’ writing of essays beyond general skills and grammar, being more reflective of their thinking. Assessment of students’ knowledge of General Education dimensions is done through voluntary assessments done in Exit Courses. Generally, students in Exit Courses are asked to participate in the Fall semester; assessments taken in Spring semester are used to fill in the gaps. Capstone courses are also used in assessments. Most colleges participated well this year, but there is a need for more data to evaluate. NSSE assessments were also conducted. The creation of a critical thinking evaluation tool was recommended for the next year. Questions were raised in regard to defining measurables and the ability to compare to peers if there are no ‘universal’ benchmarks.

2. Three requests of the Council were made:

   1. Assistance in encouraging faculty members to participate in the current Exit evaluation process

   2. Support to develop a critical thinking tool for use in course development and evaluation

   3. Inclusion of one of a GA’s assisting in assessment as a student member of the Council.

3. A review of vacancies on the Council roster was tabled this for another date. The need for student representation was mentioned.

4. Discussion of the common problems found in course proposals led to the agreement to that an email be sent to all course contacts for courses not approved, inviting them to look again at these common problems and edit/resubmit their proposals.

5. Course Proposals:

   • The list of courses proposed from the website was distributed to the members and a brief review was conducted. Four courses have already been approved (ANT 2511, ECO 2013, SYG 2000, SYG 2010) and nine courses are currently in the review stage.

     • CHM 2045 - General Chemistry I
       The only contingency was to work out the details on tuition costs.
       Unanimously approved with funding

     • ANT 2410 - Cultural Anthropology
       Reviewers did not recommend approval of this course as submitted. Proposal returned to submitter for revision.

   • Discussion of summer sessions:
     It was stated that there is no way for a 15-week course to be compressed into 6 weeks without a substantial loss of content or delivery quality. This led to a suggestion that the GEC require all GEC approved courses be taught in Summer C only (10 weeks), especially when funding is requested. Another suggestion was to request a change to trimesters. It was agreed that these topics were better suited for a full meeting with all members of the Council during the fall semester, so the topic was tabled.

   • Course reviewers were assigned for the following courses:

     • ANT 3610 - Anthropological linguistics
     • ANT 3101 - Archaeology
     • CHM 2023 - Chemistry For Today
     • GEY 2000 - Introduction to Gerontology
     • WST 2600 - Human Sexual Behavior
     • HSC 2133 - Sex Health and Decision-Making
     • PHI 1600 - Introduction to Ethics
     • ARH 3100 - Introduction to Art
     • PHI 1103 - Critical Thinking
     • MUH 2020 - History of Blues and Rock

   The next meeting of the GEC is July 28 at 9:00am in SVC 2080.

   Meeting was adjourned at 11:00 am.

Please send any suggestions or comments to:
Margaret Martinroe - webcat@ugs.usf.edu