Overview of the Review Process

In the spring of 1998, the Academic Affairs Board voted to review the then-new General Education curriculum during 2000 - 2001. In September of 2000, the AcAB decided that these three questions should guide its deliberations:

• In what ways is the general education curriculum accomplishing its stated mission?
• What are the problems that need to be addressed?
• In a spirit of on-going improvement, and in light of our experiences with the new curriculum, what areas should receive particular attention over the next two to three years?

Between October 10 and 30, 2000, we invited all students and faculty to respond to open-ended questions concerning general education on a KnowHope web site. This was done so that everyone who wished to do so could offer thoughts in a free and unconstrained fashion. The advantage of this approach is that we were able to hear from everyone who had something to say, revealing the thoughts of those most eager to speak their mind. The disadvantage is that soliciting replies from those most motivated to respond does not yield a representative sample. Therefore, the results of the review could not be generalized to the campus as a whole. This review was designed to generate questions for further study, not to provide definitive answers.

We received 832 different responses from students and 116 different responses from faculty. However, because the responses were anonymous, and because students and faculty could respond to as many or as few components as they wished, we do not know how many different people participated.

All comments were provided to every member of the Academic Affairs Board. Chuck Green, Director of General Education, read each survey and was responsible, under the guidance of the Board, for summarizing them. For each of the eleven components of the curriculum, (Cultural Heritage, Expository Writing, Fine Arts, First-Year Seminar, Health Dynamics, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Religion, Second Language, Senior Seminar, and Social Sciences), Professor Green categorized all responses offered by both students and faculty. A summary of those categories, along with representative comments of each, was presented first to the Academic Affairs Board and then to the campus as a whole. (Contact Chuck Green if you want to see a copy of the complete report.) Using these results, the Board identified both policy questions concerning each curricular component and implementation questions that could be considered by the faculty who teach each class.

So What Did We Learn?

Here are a few key findings that emerged from the review:

• A significant number of students said that they appreciated the opportunity to take courses from all parts of the college. Only a few chafed at the idea of requiring general education courses in principle.
• Students like to have options when fulfilling their general education requirements. They appreciate the opportunity to choose their courses, and would like to have more choice in some areas.
• Students care about effective teaching. They praise their instructors when courses are well-taught and can be highly critical when they believe that a course failed to meet its objectives.
• We need to do a better job of acquainting faculty with the goals and expectations of the general education courses they teach.
• Some cross-curricular themes (such as library research) have been addressed very well. Others (such as oral communication) need much more attention.

The ratio of positive to negative student comments was quite high for most components of the curriculum. However, a substantial minority of responses was negative for Cultural Heritage (both the disciplinary and interdisciplinary sections), for First-Year Seminar, and Health Dynamics. The Academic Affairs Board voted to do a more thorough review of each course as a result. The FYS and Health Dynamics reviews are being conducted this academic year. Information is being gathered from faculty who teach the courses, from students who have taken them (a more representative sample this time), and from external reviewers. Chuck Green will present the results of these reviews to the Academic Affairs Board in March of 2002. The Cultural Heritage review is scheduled for 2002-2003.