Open house on proposed revisions to general education curriculum
Faculty, staff, students, and friends of the university are invited to an open house to see the proposed plans to guide changes to the Curriculum for Liberal Education CLE, the university’s general education curriculum.
The General Education Open House will also be an opportunity for the community to provide feedback on the current stage of the revision.
The open house will be held Monday, April 21, in Newman Library’s multipurpose room on the first floor near the study café. The community can drop by anytime between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Refreshments will be provided.
Over the 2013-14 academic year, faculty teams, working in conjunction with the University Curriculum Committee for Liberal Education, generated broad learning outcomes (measurable goals/competencies) in the areas of:
- Design and the arts;
- Discourse;
- Human behavior, social relationships, and traditions of thought;
- Quantitative and computational thinking;
- Scientific reasoning;
- Ethical reasoning;
- Integration; and
- Inclusive, intercultural, and global knowledge.
Team members from each domain will be on hand at the open house to discuss their proposed learning outcomes and offer insight into the development process. Guests will be able to share their feedback to guide the next revision.
“We have taken a bottom-up approach to revising the current Curriculum for Liberal Education,” said Rachel Holloway, vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs. “In this phase, we are trying to identify what we want all students to be able to do before they graduate – the learning outcomes, our end goal. These proposed learning outcomes are what we will share in the open house and we welcome comments and suggestions from faculty, staff, students, and friends of the university.”
The learning outcomes must be finalized before any plans will be made to determine how many credit hours will be required of students in each learning outcome area as well as which courses will fulfill requirements, Holloway said.
“Our administrative and faculty teams have worked thoughtfully this year to develop these learning outcomes, using task forces, student focus groups, visits to peer institutions and national meetings, and meetings and presentations with a variety of stakeholders on campus,” said Jill Sible, assistant provost for undergraduate education. “This open house gives our teams an opportunity to share our progress, but our work certainly isn’t over. We want as much feedback as possible so we can create a hands-on, minds-on education for our students.”
Holloway and Sible anticipate a proposal working through university governance in the 2014-15 academic year. Pathways to General Education pilot courses and minors, which will be proposed by faculty members based on the proposed learning outcomes, may begin during the upcoming academic year as well.
