Ad Hoc General Education Curriculum Review Committee
Friday, February 27, 2015
1:30 p.m.
Meeting notes
Present: Richard Schilhavy, Kathryn Shields, Robert Duncan, Jennie Knight, Marc Williams, Melanie Lee-Brown, Heather Hans, Jim Hood
Guests: Damon Akins, Michele Malotky, Drew Hays
1. Drew Hays, Michele Malotky, and Damon Akins reported to the committee regarding their recent attendance at the AAC&U conference on general education revision. Here are some of the things they learned at the conference and some of their observations about the state of Guilford’s curriculum:
- Refining the curriculum intentionally can help with retention;
- Guilford is way behind in the realm of general education; newer models use an integrated curriculum that spans all four years with courses that build upon each other, incorporating high impact learning practices; this kind of coordination makes assessment much easier and students tend to understand the curriculum more readily;
- Most other schools have a Center for Teaching and Learning that centralizes course development and curricular initiatives;
- General education should be developed from the GELOs, the college mission, and the college core values;
- We have already begun the revision process by developing and passing the GELOs; now is the time to continue that momentum;
- A new curriculum could differentiate us for recruitment purposes;
- We need a better alignment between what we value and what we require;
- Given the fact that we will be restructuring the academic division, now is a perfect time to link curricular reform to that a new academic organization;
- Curriculum revision must be driven by a successful leader;
- A central question we should ask is “What is the general education curriculum supposed to do?”
2. The committee discussed briefly a survey of faculty attitudes toward the current general education curriculum being developed by Heather, Melanie, and Jennie. They will refine this instrument a bit more and distribute it to the committee for us to discuss at our next meeting.
3. Heather, Melanie, and Jennie agreed to also develop a survey asking students what they understand about the purposes of the general education curriculum.
4. Kathryn agreed to review how the 6 GELOs align with the current gen. ed. curriculum.
5. The committee agreed that Jim Hood would serve as its convener.
6. We agreed to meet next Friday, March 6 at 1:00 p.m., Study Abroad/Career Development Conference Room.