Meeting Notes for Ad Hoc Committee on General Education Curriculum Revision, March 6, 2015

GenEd Ad-Hoc Committee

2015-03-06

Attendance: Jennie Knight, Melanie Lee-Brown, Marc Williams, Heather Hans, Stephanie Hargrave, Kathryn Shields, Richard Schilhavy, Jeff Ray, Robert Duncan

Missing: Jim Hood

Faculty Survey

Committee discussed the current state of the faculty survey distributed by Heather via email, and the timeline to distribute the survey to faculty. Marc raised concerns about the distinction between major and minor revisions as in the previous faculty survey the faculty were divided between the two but made similar comments regarding the changes. Melanie and Marc proposed adding comment box for the respondent to explain what is meant by major/minor revisions, and Richard suggested a prompt for what defines major or minor revision. Stephanie  suggested adding a likert item “To what extent do you believe the curriculum needs to be changed?” anchored on None to Complete Overhaul and a comment box specific to satisfied and dissatisfied requirements.

Approved with following changes to the faculty survey: change major/minor revision question to likert scale, add comment box specific to satisfied and dissatisfied requirements, removing skip logic for yes/no revision.

Melanie, Jennie, Heather discussed emailing the survey early next week, then send student survey after Spring Break. Committee agreed to accept comments on the survey until Monday @ 5:00 PM then send to faculty Tuesday morning.

Student Survey

The upcoming student survey was discussed as well. Stephanie raised concern about response rate and fatigue student survey with three large student surveys scheduled for after Spring Break. Suggested focus groups to improve qualitative information. Robert suggested that campus organizations and faculty advisors could help organize focus groups, while Stephanie suggested that randomly selecting during lunch. Richard was concerned that a lunch-only focus group would not include a CCE voice, but Jeff was positive about the response rate for CCE students. Everyone agreed that a “paper” based survey would be the most effective, but Heather was unsure regarding the number of available tablets.

Key Elements of Committee Report

The committee discussed the outline for the committee report proposed by Jim. Melanie mentioned that similar work has been done collecting information and making a similar argument, and Marc reiterated a similar point a suggested adding information to appendices.

Stephanie informed the committee about significant redundant work occurring with the SACS review regarding the effectiveness of the general learning outcomes mapped to the general education curriculum. Some argued that the mappings proposed were not fulfilled in all of the courses that meet a specific learning outcome. Heather confirmed that ENG 102 and HP courses may help fulfill the information literacy GELO. Robert raised a concern regarding the excessive number of courses that fulfill a small number of learning outcomes, but Kathryn mentioned reducing the courses to one removes flexibility and Stephanie mentioned that growth over time cannot be assessed..

Melanie inquired where the information regarding individual effectiveness/ineffectiveness can be found. Faculty survey data (old and new) could be effective, along with current assessment activities such as the Proficiency Profile.

Next Meeting

March 27th @ 1:00 PM in Career Center