Minutes of the General Education Committee
for April 18, 2006

 

The General Education Committee met on Tuesday, April 18. Attending were Erika Behling, Frances Kavenik, Lori Allen, Alexander McNair, Dean Yohnk, George Li, Chris Tutlewski, and Mary Louise Edwards.

We looked at the minutes from the previous meeting on March 21, and added the following in place of the "Rest of the Minutes": "The Committee approved plans to review and analyze the University's information literacy requirement, and recommend action to the Senate at the end of the fall 2006 semester." With this change, the Minutes were approved.

The Director reported that she was inundated with Executive Actions, as usual, just before graduation. This is partly a result of the DARS report's inability to distinguish between BOK III and BOK IV at times, while at other times arbitrarily shifting students to the "light green sheet" when they choose or change a major. This requires that the Director manually check the student's records and preferences, then correct the permanent record. The Registrar has been apprised of the problem and has it on her list of matters in need of attention.

The Director also reported on the successful Brown Bag on Critical Thinking, which attracted a diverse audience owing to Committee members sending out personal invitations. She thanked us all. The Director and Chair talked about the sessions at the recent OPID conference in Madison which dealt with assessment of general education, both longitudinal assessment of student perceptions (North Dakota) and outcomes assessment on Critical and Civic Thinking (multiple institutions' science faculty).

They also announced that the Provost would fund a pilot literacy project, as recommended by the Literacy Subcommittee, of a few sections of select courses (PSYC 101, POLS 100, perhaps one other), to add a professional assistant to help students enhance their literacy skills, reading and writing.

Mary Louise reported on the accomplishments of the FYE (First Year Experience) group, which now has data on last year's entering freshmen, which will appear as a report by July 1, and will influence plans for next year. Plans are afoot for a "common read" (Cisneros' HOUSE ON MANGO STREET) at Phase II (Sept 5) orientation, and volunteers are needed to facilitate an hour-long discussion with about 25 new students. Contact Mary Louise if you can volunteer. One interesting piece of data shows that our retention rate from first to second semester is quite high--85% or so--but that drops off 20 or so points between second and third semester. Thus, the FYE group may turn their scrutiny more fully to freshmen students' second semester.

We discussed the Information Literacy problems and possibilities, and offered some suggestions for fall. In no particular order:

--form a focus group of librarians, faculty, and staff to find out what students need, lack, or should know at what stages of their college career.

--ask departments what they have in place to deal with Information Literacy at higher levels (the major).

--talk to various constituent groups of students and others about "information anxiety."

--try to define what "research" means and how it informs much of what is expected of college students.

The Critical Thinking subcommittee, newly constituted, may work over the summer, as did the Literacy subcommittee, to set its agenda and parameters for fall. Everyone felt we had completed our year's work in good order and would not require another meeting this semester.

--FMK