Present: Ron Nickerson and Warren Sandmann, Co-Chairs,
Dick Liebendorfer, Bill Wagner, Jim Rife, Harry Krampf, Dave Gjerde,
Gretta Handke, Kellian Clink, scribe.
1. We welcomed Dave Gjerde who has joined the
Sub-Meet this year as an ex officio member from the administration.
2. We discussed the General Education Committee’s
response to the HLC document. Ron Nickerson will send an edited
version to Don Larsson as soon as possible.
3. We discussed the Distance Learning Task Force
Report and the faculty committee’s pending response to the
report. The Gen Ed Faculty Committee expressed a concern that Gen
Ed courses which are taught online receive the same level of oversight,
review and assessment that is applied to other Gen Ed courses to ensure
that courses are delivering content to achieve the relevant Gen Ed
Category Objectives. Faculty indicated that they had adopted the
following motion at its September 14th meeting for inclusion in the
Committee’s written comments on the report.
In the face of apparently significantly different pedagogical
methodology in a distance learning environment, it seems appropriate
for the General Education Committee to review General Education course
proposals being taught in this mode to review how learning outcome are
going to be accomplished.
The General Education Faculty Committee also expressed some concerns
with the report’s lack of discussion regarding curricular issues, its
overwhelming emphasis on generation of money and new students and its
lack of recognition that additional faculty resources would be needed
to accomplish many of what the faculty consider overly ambitious
recommendations in the report.
4. We discussed the idea of a second Writing
Intensive Requirement. The General Education Committee has long been in
favor of such a requirement but were reluctant to implement due to the
perception that there was a lack of seats. Warren did a study and
found that there were in fact 2,383 possible seats available to
students in writing intensive classes this semester. Given the need for
students to graduate from MSU with strong writing skills, the General
Education Sub-Meet and Confer recommends (Liebendorfer moving, Handke
seconding) the following amendment to the General Education Curriculum:
the General Education Writing Intensive requirement be increased from 1
required course to two required courses—of at least 6 credits total,
effective with the Fall, 2006-2007 University Bulletin. The motion
passed unanimously. Ron Nickerson will take this to the
Executive Committee of the Faculty Association, from there it w e would
like it go to the Meet & Confer.