GE Task Force
General Education Task Force Meeting Minutes
April 23, 2004
Present: Beld, Booth, Cisar, Hoekstra, Larson, Umbanhowar, Zempel
Minutes from 02/16/04 meeting were amended and approved
Discussed of a student CIS project describing history of multicultural requirements at St. Olaf and a comparison of St. Olaf MCS requirements with other schools
The September 1 deadline for a report from Taskforce was considered by the committee. Committee decided that it was unlikely that a final report could or should be prepared by that date but that Sept. 1 was a good deadline for some reporting out of what committee had researched/done in preparation for forums with faculty that would happen during the Fall. Sept. 1 was not a good deadline because (a) there would not be opportunities for feedback from the faculty prior to that date, (b) difficulties with meeting schedule during summer (c) the limited time between that date and the May 21-26 AACU conference (which is seen as turning point from data collection to drafting of proposed future GE curricula), and (d) it would limit discussions with the First Year experience taskforce.
We next entered into an extended conversation about classroom vs. non-classroom components of a curriculum and the extent to which current components of GE could be met without specifying an actual requirement. This led to questions of how one assesses competency and the needs to be able to report on and/or certify competency to outside accrediting agencies, employers, or other entities. The idea of GE as an enshrinement of what we think is important was considered as was the possibility of ranking parts of curriculum into categories of (a) of great value but not essential and (b) essential. We again came back to possible dichotomy of competencies vs. proficiencies and again issues of how to assess outcomes related to one or the other of these.
We agreed to focus more in the next few weeks in part as a way to better understand the more general issues raised above on BTS-B and BTS-T next week (4/30) and then HBS and HWC the following week (5/7).
Compiled by C.E. Umbanhowar Jr
