General Education
Implementation Update

October 28, 2019

We have heard from the subcommittees just how much they value the wealth of feedback received from across the university. The deliberations at hand are complex but not intractable, and they are richly informed by the wide range of perspectives so many have contributed. We recognize the significant demands of time and energy that will be required to create and update curriculum for the new GE and, thus, the importance of the committee's timely work. This is particularly true of the open theme(s), which we will be talking about more in the coming weeks.

We continue to appreciate the remarkable efforts of the members of the committee and subcommittees. As always, please share this newsletter with your colleagues, provide your feedback at the GE website and watch for new opportunities to contribute your perspective on topics like advising, high-impact practices and the open theme(s).

— Laura Podalsky and Blaine Lilly
Co-Chairs, Implementation Committee

Updates from the subcommittees

With much of the Advising Subcommittee’s work dependent on the outputs of other subcommittees, the members are busy contributing their perspectives to the many ongoing conversations in the GE Implementation effort. In particular, the Advising Subcommittee has spent time reviewing and weighing in on the draft plan for the first Bookend Course.

Currently, the Bookend Courses Subcommittee is collaborating with the Expected Learning Outcomes (ELO) Subcommittee to refine the initial Bookend ELOs, digesting feedback from the community while continuing to explore and research a variety of specific topics. The subcommittee recently hosted Vladimir Kogan, associate professor of political science, to discuss programmatic assessment and review, generating insight into the types of questions we should be asking now and during development to create meaningful opportunities for programmatic analysis.

The Embedded/Cross-Sectional Components Subcommittee is charged with developing recommendations for how technology, data analysis, and advanced writing are incorporated into the new GE curriculum. We’re refining our recommendations and developing goals and ELOs, and will be soliciting feedback from the community soon.

The ELO Subcommittee would like to thank everyone who has provided us with feedback. Your comments and suggestions are very helpful to our efforts. We are collating and reviewing the feedback to see how we can improve the clarity and usefulness of the learning outcomes. We hope to have a revised version to share with the university community soon.

The Regional Campuses Subcommittee meets via Zoom to discuss the unique challenges of implementing the new GE on the regional campuses. Subcommittee chair Dawn Kitchen is hosting brown bag sessions on the regional campuses to hear directly from faculty, and though working with schedules across campuses is a challenge, we are planning more meetings to include those who have not yet had the opportunity to voice their questions, concerns, and solutions. Ongoing questions raised in the subcommittee include how best to enable the faculty on regional campuses to develop new courses for the themes and how to meet the technology and advising needs the new GE will present.

Frequently Asked Questions

The expected learning outcomes (ELOs) in the first Goals and ELOs draft are meant to guide the entire set of themes. The Implementation Committee plans to develop ELOs for specific themes by creating faculty steering groups with expertise in those areas.

The bookend courses will be graded as S/U.

During the curriculum development stage, the Bookend Courses Subcommittee will collaborate with Survey instructors to reduce any possible duplication of content and activities and to create opportunities for curricular alignment between the courses on specific topics.

Opportunities to engage