General Education Review Committee

Annual Report 2000-01

1. In the fall semester a University-wide search was conducted to fill the position of General Education Coordinator. The position was filled by Fred Foster-Clark. The position began spring semester 2001.
2. The Outcomes Assessment Committee (OAC) began meeting with the General Education Review Committee (GERC) at the third meeting in the fall semester. It was determined the primary responsibility of these two committees was assessment of the general education curriculum. At the final meeting of the spring semester it was decided to continue the joint meetings for the 2001-2002 school year.
3. A pilot assessment of the Mathematics Reasoning Objective was conducted during finals week of the fall semester.
4. The committee worked with Robert Wismer, chair of UCPRC to revise the course approval forms to match the General Education Program passes by senate in spring 1999.
5. The pilot standardized tests done to assess the Critical Reasoning Objective were analyzed by ETS (the testing agency) and the results were reported. It was decided that an assessment plan would be carried out during the 2001-2002 school year using this standardized test.
6. A pilot test for assessment of the Communications Objective was carried out in the spring semester. The results of this test will be determined during the summer, 2001.
7. The committee added Linda Suskie as an ex officio member to serve as our assessment advisor.
8. The committee reviewed a proposal from the Commission on Diversity to add a "D" requirement to the general education curriculum. The committee returned the proposal to the commission asking for additional information.
9. The committee passed a motion to remove the 3 credits from the G4 block, which could be filled, with any general education course. This space in the curriculum was originally filled by the second perspectives course. This motion was later withdrawn after reviewing a draft of the Middle States proposal for new standards. The committee felt that the new standards may require a major change in our general education curriculum and any change now would be premature. We will revisit this motion after reviewing the final version of the Middle States proposal.
10. Marjorie Warmkessel from the Library presented a proposal to assess the Information Literacy objective. The committee will continue to work with Marjorie during the 2001-2002 school year.
11. The committee created a process for faculty members to apply for grant money which could be used to assess one or more of the General Education objectives.

Future Plans:
The committee will continue to work on assessment of the General Education objectives. We have made substantial progress this year in assessing the Critical Reasoning, Mathematical Reasoning and the Communications objectives this year. Along with Marjorie Warmkessel we will develop an assessment plan for Information Literacy. We will need to begin work on assessment of two or three additional objectives during the next academic year.

The biggest challenge for the next year may be interpreting the new Middle States standards and the effect of these standards on our General Education Program.

Additional Information/Comments:
The chair would like to take this opportunity to thank all the committee members that gave their time this year. In particular, Dorothee Blum who chaired on the subcommittee on filling the General Education Coordinator position and the subcommittee on assessing the Mathematical Reasoning objective, Norma Rivera-Hernandez who co-chaired the subcommittee on assessing the Communications objective, and John Ward who chaired the subcommittee on assessing the Critical Reasoning objective.