Report of the General Education Committee
2003-04

The full Committee met 10 times during the 2003-2004 academic year.

The crowning achievement for the Committee was the revision of the goals of the General Education program and modifications to the program implementation. The Faculty Senate passed both the goals and the implementation changes in their April 2004 meeting. A detailed presentation of the goals and implementation program is available at http://www.cs.uwp.edu/staff/haller/GenEd. The road to this approval involved the formation of various subgroups, subgroup meetings and multiple meetings with the various campus departments and programs. The year was labor intensive.

Other noteworthy activities during the year include:

(1) The Committee reviewed and approved without comment the new guidelines developed by the Ethnic Studies Steering Committee for courses receiving the DV designation.

(2) The Committee held an informative meeting with Anne Statham and Rebecca Martin regarding the American Democracy Project.

(3) Various members of the Committee attended conferences and workshops aimed at improving the General Education Experience. At the National level, representatives attended either the March AAC&U Conference on General Education and Assessment or the July AAC&U Conference on Assessment of the First Year . At the state level, members attended the Writing Intensive Workshop held at UW-La Crosse in January, the OPID Conference in March and the Faculty College in June.

Submitted by Lori Allen and Frances Kavenik, co-chairs, September 2004