GE Minutes 2-4-2014

General Education Committee
4 February 2014
In Attendance: LaFaun Barnhurst, Gregory Wright, Richard Squire, Melanie Jenkins,
Clinton King, Adam Larsen, Joseph Papenfuss, Steve Hood, Beckie Hermansen
I. Minutes.
a. 21 January 2014: Richard motioned they be approved. Joseph seconded
the motion. Unanimous vote.
b. 28 January 2014: Lafaun motioned they be approved. Richard seconded.
Unanimous vote.

II. Discussion Items

Final GE descriptors for Humanities and Social Sciences were presented. For the most part, the changes were very minor. Committee agreed to those changes. Melanie has been working on the strategic planning narrative for GE. She asked for additional input on SWOT analysis, which was included in the 28 January minutes. Under strengths, we added GE is mission-critical and that our small size allows collegial cross discipline dialogue. To weakness, we added that if you don’t own a GE box, you can feel like a 2nd class citizen. To opportunities, we added address employer needs. Under threats we added online courses through competing institutions, as programs grow it will be difficult to maintain a present in GE courses for full time faculty, and faculty buy in or loyalty to tradition (the Chinese menu model).

Internal assessment. Beckie reported on plans for the current semester’s assessment. Then she addressed the questions of how best to administer our internal assessment? Options: at graduation meeting (30% sample), mail out a hard copy, put a link on the graduation letter (maybe 30%?), send out emails (again, maybe 30%?). Administration method decided: put a link in the graduation letter. We decided to use a combination of methods. NEH Grant: Steve Hood introduced the NEH grant that is designed to assist with the development of a course that addresses a ‘big’ question. He also mentioned that they have fantastic summer workshops and other similar summer programs, which would be a faculty development option.