Minutes of the Meeting of the Competency-Based General Education Committee (Approved)

Minutes of the Meeting of the Competency-Based General Education Committee (Approved) May 22, 2000 Members Present: Greg Aldrete, Lucy Arendt, Teri Berggren, Illene Noppe, Debra Pearson, Brian Sutton, Sherri Urcavich Guest: Scott Furlong, Chair, High Impact First Contact Committee The meeting convened at 10:50 in ES 301. 1. Discussion with Scott Furlong Scott Furlong summarized work done thus far by the High Impact First Contact Committee, especially in areas where that work might influence the work of the Competency-Based General Education Committee. Prof. Furlong stated that his committee seemed likely to advocate increasing the academic content in the current Introduction to College and making it into a one-credit course, taken (as it is now) the week before classes begin. Ideally, students who were in the same Intro to College group would then remain together as a group in taking the Freshman Seminar during their first semester at college, ideally with the same instructor who led their Intro to College group. Committee members envisioned the Freshman Seminar as either a two-credit or a three-credit course, with faculty members proposing topics for upcoming seminars and those topics subject to approval by a governing group of some kind. A difficult issue for the High Impact First Content Committee, according to Prof. Furlong, was the relationship of the Freshman Seminar to the overall General Education requirements at UW-Green Bay. (It was because of the question of this relationship that Prof. Furlong was addressing the Competency- Based General Education Committee.) The two primary options for the Freshman Seminar seem to be  to use the Freshman Seminar as a "front door to Gen Ed," preparing the students to do well in and get the most from their Gen Ed classes, or  to create Freshman Seminar topics in such a way that any given seminar could satisfy one of the current Gen Ed requirements. Notwithstanding a desire not to increase the Gen Ed requirements by three credits, the High Impact First Content Committee seemed to favor the first of the two options listed above, in large part because the second option seems to suggest just one more content-driven course, different from other Gen Ed courses in little more than its smaller enrollment. High Impact First Contact Committee members prefer that the Freshman Seminar focus mainly on more broad-based learning skills, with specific content functioning primarily as a vehicle for applying those skills. Thus, rather than focusing primarily on traditional academic content, the seminar seems likely to focus heavily on reading, writing, communication, and criticial thinking skills; issues related to "engaging the world" such as citizenship, diversity, etc.; a general orientation to the University and to the college experience; and the introduction of the portfolio and the student's personalized learning plan. Prof. Furlong then fielded questions, with most of the question-and-answer discussion focusing on transfer students: how many credits they must transfer in before the Freshman Seminar requirement would be waived for them, whether or not Nursing students would be required to take the Freshman Seminar, etc. In addition, both Prof. Furlong and Competency-Based General Education Committee members repeatedly emphasized the need to recruit the best teachers on campus for the Freshman Seminars, and to cultivate a sense of commitment among those teachers for the goals of General Education, and not just for their particular academic disciplines. 2. Discussion of Preliminary Outline for Committee Report After Prof. Furlong left, committee members turned to the issue of what their final report should say. The committee's previous meeting, May 5, had been largely devoted to brainstorming ideas for the final report, and after that previous meeting, committee co-chair Illene Noppe had sent the other committee members a preliminary outline for the final report, based on ideas from the May 5 meeting. Thus, the committee now began considering this preliminary outline. Among the points made by committee members were these:  The committee report will be only advisory; changes in Gen Ed policy must be enacted through the General Education Council.  When one considers points on which committee members generally agree, many of these points largely support or even replicate concepts from the Report of the 1991-92 General Education Task Force to the General Education Council and the Report of the [1996-97] Task Force on Upper-Level General Education. Given that a certain amount of repetition seems necessary to effect change at UW-Green Bay, the committee's final report should in some ways reemphasize certain suggestions made in those two reports but not yet implemented at the University; it should also emphasize ways some of our suggestions are attempts to put into action the overall philosophy expressed in the 1991-92 report.  Data from the committee's recent survey suggest that current UW-Green Bay Gen Ed requirements have "gaps" in terms of the General Education Learning Outcomes; that is, students can complete their Gen Ed requirements without ever taking a course in which certain learning outcomes are ever dealt with. In large measure, this seems to result from the fact that so many Gen Ed requirements can be satisfied through courses designed to introduce students to a specific academic discipline, rather than to designed to examine broader issues and methods uniting various interdisciplinary clusters. Committee members seemed to feel that courses with titles such as, for instance, Foundations of Western Culture or Introduction to the Humanities were more consonant with the goals of the UW-Green Bay General Education program than were courses with titles such as, for instance, Introduction to American Literature II or Settlement Geography. In other words, General Education courses in most cases should be as interdisciplinary in design as possible.  For Gen Ed to be truly competency-based, we need to assure that procedures such as challenge exams are in place for those students who wish to satisfy a requirement by demonstrating a competency without taking one of the courses usually associated with that competency.  Similarly, UW-Green Bay may wish to consider creating a list of key competencies and requiring measurable evidence that each graduating student has met each competency, rather than basing graduation requirements solely on courses completed.  Committee members agreed that for their next meeting--which will take place on June 5, starting at 10:45, in ES 301--they will bring specific ideas for material which should be included in Section I ("What is competency-based general education?") and Section II ("The Assessment of Competencies") of the committee's final report. The meeting adjourned at 12:30. Respectfully submitted Brian Sutton