General Education Task Force
Minutes of the January 27, 2004 Meeting
Present: Beld, Booth, Cisar, Hoekstra, Larson, Zempel.
- Approval of minutes : The minutes from the meeting of January 16, 2004 were reviewed and approved.
- Review and discussion of existing documents relevant to the GE curriculum:
Prior to the meeting, members had reviewed the following items:
- Catalog description of GE curriculum
- Individual requirement descriptions and guidelines ('lilac sheets')
- St. Olaf College 2003 NCA self-study
- J. Scott Lee, "An Institutional Profile and Comparative Analysis of St. Olaf College General Education Requirements to Peer Institutions" (Dec 2002)
- College Council Working Group Report on the GE curriculum
The remainder of the meeting consisted of a general discussion of findings, supplemented by members' own experience of teaching and learning in the context of the GE curriculum. Among the issues addressed in this discussion were:
- Inconsistencies in the wording of requirements; some reference specific departments while others do not
- Problems with the student course selection processes; lack of intentionality and coherence
- Extent to which individual courses, particularly those accredited many years ago and/or taught by multiple instructors, actually fulfill GE guidelines for the requirements for which they are accredited
- Sheer number of requirements
- Concerns about content and/or consistency of specific requirements
- Next steps: The group discussed various approaches to soliciting feedback on the current curriculum early in the spring semester.
Recorder: Jo Beld
