Additional Stipulations:

• Six courses (18 credit hours) from Required Related course work in student’s major may be counted toward any of the Gen Ed requirements above.
• Courses meeting any Gen Ed requirement will be approved according to procedures to be specified in the Governance Manual.
• Junior standing required for Advanced Writing and Perspectives.

1Is intercultural and/or cross-cultural, with culture being a worldview that reflects beliefs, customs, values, politics, and experiences as shaped by gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, national background or placement in the global system, language, material/economic background, religious background, age, and/or physical ability.

Recommendations for Specific Changes:

1. Encourage incoming students to take a First Year Perspectives (FYP) course which will count as part of a Connections and Exploration block.

FYP is a component of General Education specifically designed for first semester freshmen and offered in a seminar format, typically linked to a foundations course (either ENGL 110 or COMM 100) as part of a living/learning community. Students will choose from several varieties of FYP courses offered each semester. A major function of these FYP courses is to introduce a process of critical inquiry applied to important social, cultural, scientific, technological, and/or aesthetic problems. Each FYP course will introduce multiple perspectives related to the understanding and resolution of these problems. A second function of these FYP courses is to support students’ transition into the college experience academically, socially, and personally. Each FYP course topic will be approved according to guidelines to be specified in the Governance Manual.

Specifically, each FYP course:

1. involves 3 credit hours at the 100 level.
2. has a meaningful written and oral component, but may not carry a W label.
3. requires students to consider multiple perspectives in advancing their understanding of the importance of social, cultural, scientific, technological, and/or aesthetic problems.
4. enables quality interaction.
5. provides intellectual richness through its assignments and assessments.
6. promotes an understanding of the importance of the liberal arts and the General Education program at Millersville.
7. supports the students’ successful transition into college life by fostering connections between and among students, teachers, and the college community.
8. strengthens students’ information literacy.

Rationale:

• Provides coherence and intellectual richness to the General Education program.
• Data collected through student focus groups, faculty interviews, and student surveys during the recent implementation of First Year Perspectives courses (i.e., UNIV 101 and 179) all point to the success of this initiative.

2. Institute clarified guidelines for a required WELLness course.

The WELLness requirement is designed to assist students in making positive lifestyle changes that reduce their health risks, modify their consumer behavior, and enhance their personal well-being and productivity.

Criteria for the General Education WELL requirement are as follows:

1. must be a 3 credit course.
2. requires students to participate in a weekly physical or experiential component.
3. must be a comprehensive approach to wellness employing a variety of cognitive, behavioral, and social learning strategies to encourage and assist students in accepting responsibility for their own wellness.
4. engages students in critical thinking about wellness.
5. emphasizes the development of life-long holistic learning.

3. Require students to take at least three credits of Elective courses outside of their primary major. Students who are exempt from the Perspectives requirement and/or did not take or satisfactorily complete a FYP shall take additional Elective credits to satisfy the 12 credit Connections and Exploration block.

Elective courses details:

1. include any 100-level and higher University courses except the English Composition, Fundamentals of Speech, and Mathematics General Education Foundations courses.
2. may not include courses in a student’s primary major (BSE students may not count required professional education courses).
3. may be credited toward a second major or minor program.

Rationale:

• Adds flexibility and choice to the curriculum.
• Promotes exploration of and experimentation with subjects of interest.

4. Change from a 4-4-4 distribution to a 3-3-3 distribution in Critical Thinking across the Liberal Arts.

In order to create the flexibility and choice embedded in Recommendations 1, 2, and 3, Critical Thinking across the Liberal Arts is reduced from 12 to 9 courses. All the previous guidelines to structure students’ course selection are maintained, including the “2 in 1” department rule, the number of required related courses allowed, the definitions of the G blocks, and the number of required 200- level courses. Note that the required Mathematics course is moved to the Foundations for Lifelong Learning block.

Rationale:

• Provides the ability to add 2 courses to the “Connections and Exploration” block while retaining the current 51 credit load.
• Fulfills Characteristic 6 (i.e. “Simplicity and Flexibility”) of a reformed program.
• Enables programs to meet both the demands of accreditation and State System limits on the total number of credits.
• Provides students a greater range of choice by allowing them to explore new areas of study.
• Provides an avenue for innovative programming, such as FYP courses, to count within the curriculum.

5. Institute stronger guidelines for Writing Intensive (W) courses including a “revised prose” component. Class size limits for W courses should be reset to 25.

This recommendation re-affirms the faculty’s commitment to writing-across-the-curriculum which has been eroded from its original design with increases to class size and the resulting lowering of expectations for writing and revising. The original 1988 guidelines have been updated and made slightly more flexible while maintaining the original spirit of revised prose and the centrality of the writing process to teaching and learning.

Proposed Revised Guidelines:

1. Students practice forms of writing typical of the field. Writing assignments are designed to develop their content knowledge and enhance their communication skills.
2. Students are required to submit at least 3500 words of graded analytical and/or argumentative prose (about 14 standard double-spaced pages)--drafts, exercises, ungraded logs, etc., are additional. Some examples of how this requirement might be met include:
   1. a research paper in which the student is required to define a problem, select, organize, and synthesize information around a stated thesis.
   2. short analytical essays that explore a topic with reasoned evidence and informed opinion.
   3. position papers prepared by students that address pros and cons of controversial topics.
   4. microthemes that ask the student to find academic sources, organize ideas, develop a thesis and show evidence, but condense the final paper to a single page or two.
3. For one major project in the course, students submit a draft on which the instructor provides detailed feedback, after which students submit a revised draft.
4. Though not counting toward the 3500 word requirement, students may also be assigned reflective and/or observational writing tasks, such as:
   1. journals
   2. problem-solving notebooks
   3. logs
   4. double-entry notebooks
   5. case studies
   6. laboratory reports

Rationale:

• Provides clear purpose, intentional alignment and coherence to the General Education program.
• Restored rigor of writing and revision will add to students’ intellectual experience.

6. Add a Cultural Diversity and Community (D) requirement such that students will be required to take one approved D course as part of their major, minor, or General Education requirements.

To satisfy the Gen Ed Cultural Diversity and Community (D) requirement, all students must successfully complete one approved 3-credit course meeting the D criteria. This course may also count for credit in a student’s major or minor program or may satisfy another Gen Ed requirement.

Cultural diversity refers to the differences among people in terms of beliefs, customs, values, politics, and experiences. In essence, culture is a worldview; it is both learned and evolved. The following factors are seen as underlying these differences: Ethnicity, geography, language, sexual orientation, education, economics, age, and occupation among others.

Specifically, a D course:

1. involves 3 semester hours at the 100 level or above.
2. is intercultural and/or cross-cultural, with culture being a worldview that reflects beliefs, customs, values, politics, and experiences as shaped by gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, national background or placement in the global system, language, material/economic background, religious background, age, and/or physical ability.
3. helps students to identify, critically analyze, and apply scholarship and experience related to cultural diversity.
4. examines historical and environmental factors that underlie cultural differences.
5. provides academic structure in support of students’ positive engagement with peoples of diverse histories and communities.
6. challenges students to evaluate their own personal worldview.
7. has a meaningful written and oral component.
8. may also count as part of any additional requirement (major, minor, or Gen Ed) of the Baccalaureate degree.

Rationale:

• Aligns general education curriculum with University mission to foster in students an appreciation for cultural diversity.
• Professional literature supports the value of a structured educational approach rather than simply an experiential approach to exposing students to cultural diversity.
• Association of American Colleges and Universities in 2000 reported that 62% of all colleges and universities either already had some form of a diversity course requirement or were in the process of developing one.