MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF • THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF OHIO UNIVERSITY
FOCUS ON: TOWARD THE THIRD CENTURY: ISSUES AND CHOICES FOR THE OHIO UNIVERSITY Friday, April 22, 1994
Complete texts of focus presentations are appended to the official minutes. Therefore, only summary references are provided herein.
Continuing Analysis and Reform of Undergraduate Education Patricia B. Richard, Dean University College
THE GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM
• General Education, the portion of the undergraduate curriculum that students share in common, offers a vehicle to focus on the learning and development of undergraduate students.
• The General Education program signals what the University—at its core--is 411 about and what it values.
• The three-tiered program affirms the University's belief that an educated person needs certain abilities to participate effectively in society: • the abilities to use quantitative or symbolic reasoning and to communicate well through the written word (Tier I); • broad knowledge in major fields of learning (Tier II); • a capacity to evaluate and synthesize (Tier III).
• Tier III stands as the distinctive feature of Ohio University's General Education program. Tier Ill's interdisciplinary senior courses illustrate how real human problems require cooperative solutions involving multiple fields of knowledge.
• General Education coursework constitutes approximately one quarter of the credit hours necessary for a baccalaureate degree.
ASSESSMENT
• A variety of measures indicate the quality of the General Education program: • External support received from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, and the Ohio Board of Regents' Excellence Awards; • Marked increases in freshman-to-senior performance scores since full implementation of the General Education program; • Consistently high faculty evaluations of course development seminars for Tier III and junior level writing courses.
• To assure quality, the General Education program undergoes continuing review, through the program review process and special reports and essays on aspects of general education.