General Education Identity Task Force
2002-2003

 

Deborah Baxter (Fine Arts), Jeri Carroll (Education) (chair), Brian Withrow (Criminal Justice), Kamran Rokhsaz (Aerospace Engineering), William Vanderburgh (Philosophy)

Report Summary

Consider two alternatives for General Education: (1) General education can be considered equivalent of a broad liberal arts education…..in such a model, all upper level courses in Liberal Arts and Sciences listed with proper prerequisite could be Further Study studies. Introductory classes would continue to be monitored in the manner of the currently implemented model; or (2)  General Education can be viewed as a more clearly defined core component (see original General Education program objectives) of an otherwise broad liberal Arts and Science based educational experience.  In such a model, there is a call for greater definition of the objectives of the program, thus a corresponding definition of the nature of the courses in the curriculum.  This model, although it addresses the same mission, goals and objectives, should be defined more specifically to address particular components such as writing, numerical skills, and introductory level exposure across the existing program divisions (Humanities and Fine Arts, Social Science, Biological and Natural Science). (See Appendix A).

Examined General Education Programs at 34 institutions (See Appendix B).  Determined that the WSU program was similar in the number of courses and the spread in terms of basic skills and the 4 divisions.

Developed a General Education Concept Map of the WSU General Education Goals, Outcomes, and Across the Curriculum Components.  Determined that not all goals had outcomes, not all outcomes had goals (see Appendix C). 

Recommendations:

  1. Appropriate divisions work to complete the General Education Concept Map.
  2. Maintain basic skills courses. 
  3. Define a more focused general education program by (a) reducing the number of general education and further study courses in one of three ways (see p. 5), and (b) clarifying the focus of the general education program by allowing departments to limit and redefine their courses to fit the requirements of general education courses.
    • Each course must meet one general education goal.
    • Each course must meet  one or more outcomes of the general education program
    • Each course must include the across-the-curriculum components.
    • The assessment of the general education goal and outcome is built into the critical assessment pieces of the course.


 

Final Report

In Spring 2001, Faculty Senate President Will Klunder appointed an Ad Hoc General Education Committee to examine the general education program.  The team of 10 faculty, 1 dean, and an ex-officio associate vice president of academic affairs, chaired by Dr. Peer Moore-Jansen, worked during the 2001-2002 academic year to address the issues of the charge.  The committee focused on “program structure, and content, advising and faculty perception, and, to a lesser degree, outcomes.  The activities of the Ad hoc committee grew increasingly throughout the year as the complexity of the General Education program a Wichita State University became ever more apparent.”

In Spring 2002, an extensive report was filed with by the Ad Hoc General Education Committee to the Faculty Senate (http://webs.wichita.edu/senate/ahge%20report.htm) which indicated that several issues “arose and [were] summarized as matters of short-term and long-term consequence to be dealt with by the faculty senate or future taskforces.” Following the filing of an extensive report by the General Education Task Force in Spring 2002, four specialized task forces were appointed by Faculty Senate President Kirk Lancaster to investigate select matters suggested in the report. 

Taskforce (3) was labeled the “Identity Taskforce” and charged with two primary tasks (3A and 3B).  (See Appendix A).


PREAMBLE

The charge of the Task Force on the “identity” of the General Education Program at WSU asks us to decide between two models of what General Education ought to be at WSU.  In order to make a reasoned decision, there are some fundamental issues that need to be considered.  In an important sense, the way in which we design our General Education program is our answer to the following questions.  What is a university?  What is a university education for?  What role does General Education play in a university education?

 

The exponential increase of knowledge over the last century has meant ever-increasing specialization within academic departments and disciplines.  But the old ideal of a “renaissance person”, still applies even in this age of specialization—someone who is broadly educated, who has significant knowledge across a wide variety of fields.  Employers of all kinds who seek university educated employees usually are not looking for a high degree of specialization in a particular sub-field, but rather the general competence in reasoning, problem solving, self-directed learning and written and oral communication skills that a good university education imparts to good students.

Broad Liberal Arts Education vs. More Clearly Defined Core

The committee saw as its initial decision that of determining whether General Education at WSU was or should “be the equivalent of a broad liberal arts education” or “be viewed as a more clearly defined core component (see original General Education program objectives) of an otherwise broad liberal Arts and Science based educational experience.”  Initially defining broad and focused in terms of quantity, the committee did an online examination of thirty (34) General Education programs at several institutions (Kansas Regents Institutions, peer institutions, Fine Arts programs, and institutions that could be categorized as “other”). (See Appendix B).

Except for a couple of highly unique programs, it seemed as if the WSU program was by definition appropriate in number and somewhat in scope.  Although the table does not indicate the number of choices students had within a given category (fine arts, humanities, social sciences, math and natural sciences), most programs allowed students choice within the various divisions and many offered various configurations for different degree programs in the institutions. 

Four additional findings emerged:

  1. Many institutions offered upper division integrative, synthesis, thematic, contemporary issues courses similar to WSU’s I&P courses. 
  2. Recalling earlier feverish debates about whether or not we should require a multicultural element to our present General Education program, nearly one third of the programs had a diversity/multicultural/global awareness or education element. 
  3. At least half of the institutions required speech as one element of their General Education program. Others offered speech as an option or as a competency.
  4. Many institutions had a flexible number of hours depending on the degree.
  5. A few of the institutions had basic skills as admissions standards rather than part of the initial requirements.

General Education Goals and Outcomes
The Identity Task Force examined the General Education Program Goals and Outcomes as outline in the WSU Undergraduate Catalog.  The program goals were mapped to the outcomes. (See Appendix C).  The curriculum map indicated that several goals had no corresponding outcomes and that several outcomes had no goal.  In addition, it was not clear that within the framework of the general education program that the goals and outcomes could be achieved or are achieved by each student who completes the program. 

The Identity Task Force recommends as a first step, that the General Education Concept Map be completed, allowing faculty in appropriate disciplines to craft the needed goal and/or outcome statements, keeping in mind the need to have the goal and/or outcome addressed and assessed in a course, service project, or clinical situation. 

Focus within General Education
Once it was determined that the challenge was not the quantity of hours, a further examination of the number of courses offered as choices within each department became the focus of the investigations.  The source of information for this study became a study completed by the Office of Institutional Research in Spring 2002 of the courses, the number of sections, enrollment, and mean enrollment of introductory, further study, and I&P courses (http://webs.wichita.edu/depttools/user_home/?view=oir&page=/genedreports/main2). The results of that report for Fall Semesters are summarized in the table below.  Courses where the average enrollment was less than 5 have been removed from the results.


General Education Courses Fall Semesters 1998-2001

 

 

Intro Courses

Further Study

I&P

Art History

3

6

 

Dance

1

 

 

Mus C

2

4

1

Theater

3

7

1

FA

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

Comm

1

7

1

English

3

10

 

French

1

2

 

German

1

1

 

Spanish

1

2

 

Greek

1

 

 

Ling

1

 

 

History

5

28

2

Phil

3

10

2

Pol Sci

2

11

1

Rel

2

1

 

Wom St

2

4

1

Min St

2

1

 

 

 

 

 

Anthro

6

10

1

Econ

1

1

1

Ethnic Studies

1

 

 

Geography

2

3

 

Sociology

1

12

1

Psychology

1

14

2

CJ

1

3

 

 

 

 

 

Biology

4

 

2

CS

2

1

 

Chem

3

4

 

Geol

2

6

1

Math

2

2

1

Physics

6

3

1

Stat

1

2

 

 

 

 

 

H P

 

 

1

Honors

 

 

1

I B

 

 

1

LAS I

 

 

1

Reviewing this synthesis of the course offerings in the General Education program at WSU reveals the following:

A PROPOSAL FOR GENERAL EDUCATION AT WSU

The basic skills component should be thought of as separate from the General Education program proper.  Basic skills requirements make possible General Education (or any kind of decent education), but they are not themselves part of general education properly construed.  With the recent addition of Regent’s Qualified Admissions Standards, in years to come Wichita State University may be ready to require basic skill competencies for entrance.  However, at this time, that recommendation is not made.

 

It makes sense to think of General Education as in part defining the distribution requirements for an adequate university degree.  The current practice of requiring courses in each of (or a significant subset of) the major divisions within LAS (humanities, sciences, social sciences and fine arts) satisfies this ideal of a liberal education.  This is something that our General Education program should preserve.

General Education also includes the idea of depth as well as breadth.  Since this is depth outside of the major field, it is to be expected that it will be somewhat less deep than what is achieved in the major.  Nevertheless, some depth—that is one or two courses beyond the introductory level—should be required in one or two areas. To accomplish this and meet the goals and outcomes of the general education program The Identity Task Force attempted to make its decisions on what best addressed the existing General Education Program Goals and Outcomes, what could easily be tracked, and had an element of assessment built in.  The recommendation is that General Education at WSU should be a more clearly defined core component (see original General Education program objectives) of an otherwise broad liberal Arts and Science based educational experience. (Alternative 3A 2 from the 2001-2002 Ad Hoc General Education Committee) (See Appendix A).

In order to accomplish a broad-based general education program with depth and focus, a reduction in the number of courses is required. Three alternatives for the 30 hours of general education are proposed:

Option One: Survey, Introductory, Further Study

  1. One survey course per division (12 hours)
  2. One Introductory courses per division (12 hours)
  3. Two Further Study courses, outside the major (6 hours).  The Further Study courses selected must have as their prerequisite one of the Introductory courses the student has taken.

The following criteria are required of all courses.

Courses are published with the goals and outcomes addressed.  The student is held accountable for meeting all General Education Program Goals and Outcomes by the courses selected. 

Option Two: Introductory, Further Study

This option requires that each department, set of departments, or divisions have only one introductory course which is an introductory course to the discipline(s). 

  1. One Introductory courses per division (12 hours)
  2. 1-2 Further Study courses per division (variable by major), each of which has as its prerequisite the Introductory course taken by the student. (18 hours)

The following criteria are required of all courses.

 

Option Three: Introductory, Further Study, I&P

Option Three is similar to the existing program in its framework, but is more focused by substantially limiting the number of courses to be included in the General Education Program.

The following criteria are required of all courses.

Resources