1. General Education Curriculum Redesign
Update to Faculty Council
March 9, 2018

2. We’ve been listening! Input from faculty, students, and staff
Revised timeline
Feasibility & Design committees
Getting focus capacities right
Coordinating Committee has been working intensively throughout February on listening to this input, synthesizing with goals and research, and specifying and amending

3. Revising the Timeline
: Continued coordination with Feasibility and Design committees
: Pilots of innovations
e.g., III courses, Student Affairs coordination, e-Portfolio
: Potential Phase in of some elements
No Faculty Council legislation this year
Doing this right is much more important than doing it quickly. After hearing from the committees and our colleagues, we have decided to slow down and phase the process over time. At each point we will be assessing and amending as necessary to make sure we’re ready for the next phase.

4. Coordinating with F&D Committees
11 Committees with open participation
Course Availability and Scheduling
Student Learning Outcomes
First Year Scheduling
Ideas, Information and Inquiry (III) Course
Student Affairs Cohort Program
Junior/Senior Communication Course
E-Portfolio
Assessment and Amendment
College Resourcing and Support
Educational and Global
Transfer Students
Coordinating Committee has been working intensively throughout February on listening to this input, synthesizing with goals and research, and specifying and amending

5. Big Picture for Focus Capacities
F&D committee insights and preliminary mapping
Harvard: 9 courses (27 credits), plus foreign language
Stanford: Approximately 22 credit, plus foreign language
Virginia: 41 credits, plus foreign language
Berkeley: credits, plus foreign language
UCLA: Approximately 43 credits
Michigan: 39 credits, plus foreign language (not including writing requirement)
Northwestern: Approx. 21 credit, plus foreign language
Yale: 30 credits, plus foreign language
William and Mary: 33 credits, plus foreign language
New Capacity Categories
Making Connections Gen Ed attributes
Ethical, Civic, and Democratic Reasoning
Philosophical and Moral Reasoning (PH)
Social and Behavioral Sciences (SS)
Diversity, Power, and Inclusion
U.S. Diversity (US)
Global Issues (GL)
Engagement with the Human Past
Historical Analysis (HS)
World before 1750 (WB)
Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning (QR)
Quantitative Intensive (CI)
Aesthetic and Interpretive Analysis
Visual and Performing Arts (VP)
Literary Arts (LA)
Creative Expression
Experiential Education – Performing Arts
Communication Intensive (CI)
Other Gen Ed courses that utilize “artistic creative expression” in some way
Natural Scientific Investigation
Physical and Life Sciences (PL)
Physical and Life Sciences with lab (PX)
Global Engagement
Beyond the North Atlantic (BN)
North Atlantic World (NA)
Coordinating Committee has been working intensively throughout February on listening to this input, synthesizing with goals and research, and specifying and amending

6. Getting Focus Capacities Right
Coordinating with F&D committees and all stakeholders regarding
Draft Focus Capacities
Emerging Items and Open Questions
• Ethical, Civic, and Democratic Thinking
• Diversity, Power, and Inclusion
• Evidence-based Research and Inquiry
• Engagement with the Human Past
• Quantitative Reasoning
• Aesthetic and Interpretive Analysis
• Creative Expression
• Natural Scientific Investigation
• Global Engagement
• F&D and stakeholder Input regarding capacities
• Ensuring students engaged in “sustained” activities
• Ensuring “global” priorities of University
• Ensuring students can “work across distances” of space, time, etc.
• Possibilities for innovations with “creative expression”
Coordinating Committee has been working intensively throughout February on listening to this input, synthesizing with goals and research, and specifying and amending

7. Emerging First Year Adjustments
Drop the first-year cohort as part of the curriculum
Alternatives to FYS: small, faculty-taught courses; could be departmental “gateways,” global focuses, etc.
Ideas, Information, and Inquiry (III): broad, collaborative courses proposed by faculty teams

8. More Representative Oversight Committee
6 members of the voting faculty: 5 elected, 1 appointed by the Dean
The Chair of the Educational Policy Committee or another member of EPC designated by the Chair
2 undergraduate students, appointed by Student Government
Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education (ex officio)
We heard colleagues concerned about representation of the faculty on the governance of the curriculum; we remain flexible on this but note that this structure means 6 elected faculty, 2 elected students, 1 appointed faculty, and 1 administrator

9. Assessment and Amendment
Streamline and improve existing assessment requirements
Overall goal: are we doing what we are trying to do for our students?
Oversight Committee (faculty) leads the effort
Periodic amendments proposed by Oversight Committee to Faculty Governance
Faculty innovations piloted through Oversight Committee

10. Encouraging Exploration
Reducing “size” of General Education
Providing foundational breadth
Preventing growth in size of majors
Encouraging supplemental education to be outside Division of the major
Leads to more space for elective courses outside Gen Ed and the Major

11. Communication and Information
Campus update approx. March 19
Additional information online soon:
Research brief (background for some elements of the proposal)
Gen Ed requirements at other universities
Perrin, “Why the Liberal Arts? The Value of General Education” (blog post)
EPC, Faculty Council briefings
always welcome: