June 24, 1987
MEMO TO: Deans and Directors
Department Chairpersons
FROM: Galen K. Pletcher
SUBJECT: Consultant's Report on General Education Program
The University, with the cooperation and support of the Association of American Colleges, recently brought to campus Dr. Reynold Feldman, Dean of Program Development at Northeastern Illinois University, to examine and evaluate the newly-implemented General Education Program. His report has now been received, and I am distributing it to you for your information. Please feel free to share it with others who are interested in general education at SIUE, or give me their names and I will send it to them at once.
GEPCI is paying close attention to this report as it composes its final recommendations regarding the General Education Program. I welcome your comments and observations.
attachment
cc: Barbara Teters
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Consultation Report on The General Education Program Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville
Prepared by Reynold Feldman
Dean of Program Development
Northeastern Illinois University Chicago
(co-funded by Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and the Association of American Colleges)
June, 1987
I. Introduction
I was contacted in late March by Ms. Jane Spaulding of the Association of American Colleges (AAC) and asked to serve as a consultant/evaluator for the recently revised General Education Program at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIUE). Subsequently, I spoke by phone with Dr. Galen Pletcher, Chair and Associate Professor of Philosophy at SIUE, who has headed the General Education Program Committee for Implementation (GEPCI) since its installation in summer, 1984. During our conversation we agreed to a five-day consultation consisting of a preparation day, three days on campus, and a day to draft my report.
By way of preparation, I reviewed (1) the "Edwardsville Bulletin" (Vol. 15, No. 11 of June 11, 1984) in which President Lazerson officially approved and announced the new general education (GE) program to the SIUE Community; (2) the '84-'86 Undergraduate Catalog, which described the old "General Studies" program; (3) the Supplement to the '84-'86 Undergraduate Catalog, the General Studies Completion Guide (Summer 1986 and After), and the '86-'88 Undergraduate Catalog, all of which describe the new GE program ; (4) assorted fall '84 documents from GEPCI on the new GE program, including approval criteria for Skills, Introductory, Advanced, and Interdisciplinary Courses; (5) new course request forms (VPP Forms 90A) describing 10 Skills Courses, 2 Introductory Fine Arts and Humanities Courses, 3 Introductory Social Science Courses, 4 Introductory Science and Mathematics Courses, and 4 Interdisciplinary Courses that had been approved for the new program; (6) assorted reports including (a) the GE portion of the 1976 accreditation report, (b) the President's Memorandum on 12/13/78 to the GE Task Force, (c) The GE Task Force's Final Report of 10/7/81, (d) the President's Memorandum to the Curriculum Council of 1/25/82, (e) the President's Memorandum to the Faculty Senate of 11/1/83, (f) the Chancellor's Office Report to the Board of Trustees of 10/84, (g) Galen Pletcher's Report to the Board of Trustees of 10/11/84, (h) G. Pletcher's Memorandum for the IBHE Hearing on the Quality of Undergraduate Education of 3/27/85, (i) the President's Memorandum to the Chancellor of 12/9/85, (j) G. Pletcher's Report to the Board of Trustees of 3/13/86, (k) the President's State of the University Report of 1/27/87; (7) draft interim evaluation materials put together by GEPCI to assess student and faculty opinion on the new GE program; and (8) GEPCI's draft operating papers for the new General Education Committee.
The dates for my campus visit were set for May 26-28, beginning at about 9:30 AM Tuesday and concluding about 5 PM Thursday. In the meantime, Dr. Pletcher and I had two extended telephone conversations in which we dealt with the logistics of my visit, discussed the materials I had received, planned meetings with specific groups and individuals during my three days on campus, clarified details of the program-revision and implementation process, and discussed the draft evaluation documents. It was our original intention, in fact, for me to suggest revisions for the latter over the phone. But given some concerns I had with the evaluation approach, we decided to postpone this part of our conversation until my arrival on campus.
At my request Dr. Pletcher reserved free time during each of my days on campus to allow for unscheduled individuals or groups to meet with me should the need arise. My final schedule is attached as Appendix 1. Fortunately, besides meeting with GEPCI twice for a total of three hours, I was able to interview President Lazerson, the incoming and outgoing chief academic officer, the Associate VP for Academic Programs, the chair of the original GE Task Force of the late '70's, and various other interested faculty and staff. My general approach was to ask about the strengths and weaknesses of the new GE program over against the one it replaced. I also had an extended meeting with a dozen or so academic support professionals from Admissions and Records, Special Programs, and Academic Advisement. Most significantly, through the good offices of Professors Barker, Keene, and Richardson, I was able to visit one Introductory and two Advanced GE courses and survey student opinion about the program. The results of these informal surveys are also appended (Appendix 3).
What follows in Part II are my findings on the general education program now in place. As in the reaccreditation visit format, I indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the program as they appear to me. Part III, then, contains recommendations and suggestions for further development of undergraduate general education at SIUE. Three Appendices are attached: Appendix 1 lists the actual meetings I attended on campus; Appendix 2 contains the survey responses of the GEPCI members at our May 26 meeting; and Appendix 3 contains student feedback from my visits to three classes. Finally, a copy of my interview notes has been forwarded to the GEPCI chairperson for transcribing.
To conclude this introduction, I would like to praise Dr. Galen K. Pletcher, my host, who did everything possible to help me prepare for my visit and to make the visit itself a rich opportunity for observation and interchange. Everyone I met at SIUE was uniformly gracious and helpful. But Dr. Pletcher deserves special commendation for going out of his way to assure that my days on campus were well spent. I am grateful to everyone at SIUE who took time to be with me, answer questions and offer suggestions. Here's hoping that this report will assist in making a good general education program even better.
II. Findings
The GS program in force prior to Summer, 1986, was technically housed in University College, the then academic home for entering undergraduates and undeclared majors. The program consisted of a set of distribution requirements for 52 quarter hours and 16 hours of skills courses (= two courses in written communications, one in oral communications, and one in reasoning or problem-solving). Since eight hours were waived in the distribution area of each student's eventual major, the actual GE requirement came to 60 quarter hours, or 31% of the 192 minimum hours needed for the baccalaureate.
Per the 1984-86 Undergraduate Catalog, students could choose four of 37 Humanities/Fine Arts courses, one course from eleven in Interdisciplinary Studies, four of 26 in Natural Science/ Mathematics, and four of 25 in Social Science. Additionally, students in the sciences, engineering, and nursing had certain disciplinary courses they could substitute for the official General Studies distribution courses. As a rule, though, only General Studies courses listed in the specific distribution areas fulfilled GE requirements. These courses bore special prefixes which could mislead students about the identity of the departments responsible for them. Also, with very few exceptions, General Studies courses could be taken in any sequence and without prerequisites.
Finally, the "purposes' of General Studies were described in a 175-word "boilerplate" paragraph ('84-'86 Undergrad. Cat., p.25) with no specific goals listed or highlighted.
The new GE program, as set out in the 1986-88 Undergraduate Catalog, shares a number of similarities with its predecessor. Both include skills requirements and a set of limited-list distribution courses. The distribution areas, moreover, are unchanged. The skills requirements in both programs feature two sequential writing courses. And the 4-hr. Interdisciplinary Course remains in effect, with a number of the same courses appearing in both catalogs.
But the differences are also many and significant:
*The new program requires 72 or 76 quarter hours, 37% or 40% of those needed for graduation, vs. 31% under the old program.
*Students under the new program must demonstrate reading, writing, and math competencies before they may take GE courses.
*The new program is structured in four tiers--skills courses; introductory (distribution) courses; advanced (distribution) courses; and the interdisciplinary course.
*The sequencing in the new program is also somewhat structured such that the skills courses must be satisfactorily completed by the end of sophomore year and the interdisciplinary course must be taken in junior or senior year only.
*The skills component now allows for two options--eight hours of written communication and (A) four hours each in oral communication, critical thinking, and statistics or computer programming; or (B) twelve hours of a foreign language plus four hours of critical thinking, statistics, or computer programming.
*Course options in the introductory distribution areas are fewer in the new program and waivers have apparently disappeared.
* The "Purpose and Goals" of the new program are described more tersely, with three goals specifically highlighted ('86-'88 Undergrad. Cat., p. 14):
"* to express ideas effectively in oral and written communication;
"* to utilize analytic, synthetic, and quantitative skills in the solution of complex problems; and
"* to develop understanding of the concepts and methodologies of disciplines in the fine arts and humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences."
*All the courses in the skills area and in the distribution areas--introductory, advanced, and interdisciplinary--have been resubmitted for approval to GEPCI before being offered in the new program. (Note that advanced courses are reviewed for general-education suitability only.)
*Introductory courses are required to reinforce thinking, writing, reading, speaking, problem-solving, and quantitative skills in the context of the course, as appropriate.
*Breadth is assured in the new program by requiring students to choose six intro and at least four advanced courses from disciplines outside their major fields, with no fewer than two disciplines represented in each distribution area.
*If a course is used to satisfy the Constitution requirement, the same course may not also be used to satisfy a GE distribution requirement in the new program.
*The new program requires that departmental major or minor courses (typically upper-division disciplinary courses) be used to satisfy advanced distribution requirements.
*Perhaps most importantly from the perspective of faculty and administrators at SIUE, general education is now "mainstreamed" in that GE courses are offered by departments and identified as such.
To the extent that I have been called upon to evaluate this program, I must say in advance that the program has been in effect for far too short a time (not quite a full year) to render a serious judgment. Currently, most of the undergraduates at Edwardsville are going through under the old General Studies program. Further, an evaluation strategy has not yet been mapped, instruments selected and/or developed, and data collected or analyzed. Therefore, whatever I say here is based on impressions from SIUE materials I have studied or people I have met. With these provisos in mind, it is my considered opinion that the new GE program is a distinct improvement over the former GS program.
STRENGTHS
*The new program beefs up the formal general-education component from ca. 30% to ca. 40% of every native freshman's baccalaureate study. Given our tendency to overspecialization, the higher proportion is preferable. (However, a weakness in both programs, mandated by the State's Articulation Agreement with community colleges, is having to grant that transfer students with A.A. or A.S. degrees have virtually completed their GE requirements, the only exception being the junior/senior interdisciplinary course.)
*The new program reintroduces foreign-language study into SIUE's undergraduate baccalaureate requirements through the two-option skills component (though later data collection may show tongue-tied Americans, in Senator Simon's phrase, flocking to Option A, the non-foreign language track).
*All-important academic skills are reinforced in the program in a variety of ways--through pre-entrance testing and mandatory pre-GE skills course for high-risk students, through the beefed-up skills component itself, and through GE skills explicitly required in the six intro (or 111) courses.
*Students in the new program are exposed to a wide variety of modes of thought and course content at both introductory and advanced levels.
*There is a solid liberal-arts basis in the new program which precludes courses that are primarily technical or pre-professional.
*New GE courses are morel likely to be of high quality since they are offered by the responsible departments and bear disciplinary designations.
*The new GE program "marbles" general education through the four undergraduate years rather than tending to limit it, as in the old program, to lower-division courses appropriate to the first two years.
*By requiring all GE course to undergo rigorous review initially and every subsequent five years, GEPCI plays an important quality-assurance function. Indeed, the seriousness and perseverance with which GEPCI has attended to its mission over the past three years must be considered a major strength of the new program.
*General education at SIUE enjoys strong administrative support, from the President down, with the incoming Provost, Dr. David Werner, a long-time member of GEPCI and a dedicated proponent of general education.
*The SIUE faculty seem over all to have greater confidence in the value and rigor of the current GE courses vs. the old ones.
*Similarly, with disciplinary coursework now required in GE, departments are more in sympathy with, and less critical of, GE courses than formerly.
*With a greater number or faculty teaching in the new program because of the department-based advanced courses, there is a broader sense of faculty ownership.
*Overall, the new program is characterized by rigor and tightening up in such matters as requiring threshold skills competence and completion of the chosen skills option in the first two years; designation of English composition sections for honors students, non-native speakers, and those wishing computer-assisted instruction; elimination of waivers and double-counting of courses fulfilling the Constitution requirement; decreasing the number of Introductory course options, etc.
WEAKNESSES
*The 1976 NCA team commented that the then-current GE program lacked " a unifying force which might help build a spirit of liberal or general education among the undergraduates" and that it was perceived "by faculty and students alike" as "lacking cohesiveness or plan." Rather, it seemed " an amalgam of courses bearing little relationship to each other. " Although the new program is procedurally tighter and structurally sounder, I find that NCA's 1976 criticism still applies. Lack of thematic coherence, resulting in a lack of distinctiveness and verve, strikes me as the current program's chief weakness and a challenge yet to be met.
*A related weakness is that although all students under the new requirements must go through the same kind of program, there is little common curricular ground. In an undergraduate program of study already highly individualized, the new GE requirements do little to give students a sense of overarching intellectual community.
*Despite the obvious commitment of the administration and the ongoing attentiveness of GEPCI and its chair, I have the sense that general education at SIUE needs full-time administrative leadership and a standing committee charged to oversee further program development and evaluation as well as to maintain program quality.
*Also lacking is an agreed-upon strategy for ongoing formative evaluation of general education at SIUE. There is a sense of the need for evaluation. Indeed, my visit and the survey vehicles under development by GEPCI are sufficient testimony to this awareness. What is wanting, however, is an evaluation strategy together with a standing subcommittee to help design and oversee it.
*While the program is strongest at the level of specifics (that is, attention to details of implementation), Admissions and Records people should be surveyed concerning matters of transfer credit and transcripting; undergraduate advisors should be surveyed about the adequacy of section availability (esp. in math and the sciences), the timely flow of updated information, problems of consistency (e. g., Why is Choir on the distribution list but not Ceramics?), concerns with adequate GE advisement by major advisors, and concerns with program flexibility (e.g.,Why can't a Constitution course count also for GE? What would be lost by this concession?); and Special Services professionals should be queried about their concerns, including greater GE course availability for their students and possibly specially designed sections for them.
*Another weakness in general education at SIUE is conceptual. As at many other campuses nationally, general education seems "ghettoized," restricted to those courses in the program. This problem obtains despite the praiseworthy inclusion of Advanced Courses as part of the distribution requirement. In fact, general education should be the business, even if not the chief focus, of all instructors in all undergraduate courses--general education across the undergraduate curriculum, so to speak.
*While the new statement of GE purpose and goals in the '86-'88 catalog is an improvement over its predecessor, the three goals listed have a strong skills emphasis and should be supplemented with goals of knowledge, sensitivity, and commitment.
*Yet another concern is the lack of a required lab science in the program. There are without question genuine problems of space and staff time, but general-education exposure to the sciences without hands-on laboratory experience is a noteworthy weakness in the program.
*Given the complexities of the new program, the greater involvement by faculty in GE, and the concern that skills be reinforced in 111 courses if not in the advanced distribution courses as well, a final weakness is the lack of ongoing faculty training and development. If, for example, non-English teachers are expected to require and give feedback on written work or non-philosophers are to enhance students' critical thinking skills, then their colleagues should be helped and trained to do so. As Jerry Gaff frequently says, faculty development is the other half of curriculum development. To have the latter without the former is risky at best, self-destructive and wasteful at worst.
III. Recommendations
1. The General Education Committee (GEC) scheduled to succeed GEPCI this fall should be charged with responsibility for the ongoing development and refinement as well as the strategic evaluation of undergraduate general education at SIUE in addition to oversight of the policies and procedures of the new GE program and assurance of quality in all program components.
2. An administrative office should be created or a current administrator be given primary responsibility for the well-being of general education at SIUE. The person so designated would relate to the forthcoming GEC much as a chief executive officer to a board of trustees. It would thus be best if the GEC were chaired by a faculty member and not the GE administrator. Possible titles for such a position are Director (Coordinator) of General Education, Dean of General Education, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Assistant Provost for Undergraduate Studies (or, General Education), Assistant Provost for Curriculum, etc. The issue is less one of title than that such an office, as an effective localization of faculty and administrative concern, should exist.
3. A small subcommittee of either the new GEC or the Curriculum Council should be established to recommend an ongoing evaluation strategy for undergraduate general education at SIUE. (Note that I did not say to evaluate the effectiveness of the new GE program, though this activity would surely be included.) I envision GEPCI recommending 6-8 faculty members/administrators with interest and/or expertise in evaluation, from whom three or four would be selected to serve three-year terms.
4. The new GEC should re-examine the current catalog statement on GE purpose and goals, and recommend some three to six additional goals along the lines of--these are illustrative only--"global awareness," "familiarity with a second culture," "familiarity with the major challenges of the modern world," etc. Every undergraduate course would then list a minimum of two all-university GE goals in the course syllabus along with the regular course-specific objectives; and all these objectives would be taught too.
5. The new GEC should work with the science departments to help them find creative ways to supplement lecture courses with labs, fieldtrips, observations, mini-internships, association with research projects, etc. In this way, all GE students will eventually have experiential as well as theoretical learning in the sciences. Perhaps I should mention in this regard that at Northeastern Illinois University, a school not dissimilar to SIUE, students are required to take four semester courses in the sciences, one course of which must be a lab course.
6. The new GEC should undertake a major consideration of how best to implement faculty training and development for general education.
7. The new GEC might also consider the relationship between general education and undergraduate advisement, including departmental advisement, and make recommendations on how this relationship might be strengthened.
8. Similarly, the GEC should immediately begin a series of discussions on how to build greater coherence into undergraduate GE. The GE Task Force of the late 70's had some good ideas along these lines, it seems to me, but the Task Force was overly ambitious in trying to devise four fully integrated GE options. More feasible, now that the old GS program has been enriched, restructured, and tightened up, might be a single thematic pilot program--possibly two--for 100 students or so. Given campus and Metro East resources, faculty interest, and current relevance, a pilot alternative GE track in global studies might be a good bet. Still another possibility would be to resurrect the idea of a Great Books alternative GE track, perhaps as an honors track. The trick is for one faulty member or a small number to take leadership, bring together other interested colleagues, and begin to put together ideas for an eventual recommendation to the new GEC. For its part the GEC might want to initiate a University-wide competition to elicit proposals for alternate tracks to be piloted. Similarly, the President's Fund to Promote Excellence in Undergraduate Education might have a strategic role to play.
9. Other suggestions to enhance coherence in general education include a freshman seminar, a senior capstone seminar, a required service learning experience for all students (see E. Boyer, College: The Undergraduate Experience in America, 1987, p.218), a senior essay, and a general education comprehensive examination, among other possibilities. I don't recommend any of the above ideas per se but put them down to stimulate the GEC's thinking on the topic. Right now, finding coherence and integration in their undergraduate programs is being left, rather unfairly, to the students. The Freshman First idea for an extended orientation program has merit and should be piloted to work out the bugs. An Intro to Undergraduate Studies course, in lieu of a freshman seminar, might be piloted in special sections of current academic development and freshman writing courses; a senior essay might be piloted in special seniors-only Interdisciplinary courses.
10. A final recommendation responds to President Lazerson's call in his 1/87 State of the University Address for "enhancing undergraduate education through a consideration of institutional structure" (p.8). Specifically, I recommend the creation of a FACULTY OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES at SIUE. Members would be appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Provost and the GEC. These faculty members would henceforth bear titles like "Professor of History and Undergraduate Studies." The administrative head of GE would serve as dean of this faculty ex officio. Just as old-time graduate faculty were entitled to teach graduate courses and were reassigned time for research, the Undergraduate Studies faculty would be recognized for their excellence in undergraduate/GE teaching by being reassigned time for curriculum development, training, and perhaps even advisement responsibilities. Members would of course be expected to attend regular training workshops on topics like how to devise effective syllabi, how to teach for general education in content courses, how to teach writing effectively, etc. Also, funds would be made available for memberships in professional organizations or attendance at undergraduate/general education, skills development, etc. Faculty would be encouraged to visit outstanding undergraduate programs elsewhere and would be funded to do so. Finally, members would be encouraged to produce papers and monographs on excellence in general and undergraduate education, to the end that SIUE become known nationally as a school with an unusually active and effective commitment to excellence in undergraduate education.
This, then, is my report. I hope I have been sufficiently responsive to what I have read, heard, or seen, and that some of my ideas will prove useful in enhancing the well-being of general education at SIUE. To paraphrase Luther, universitas semper est reformanda; reforming the university is a never-ending job. (Luther of course was talking about ecclesia, the Church.) The resources--human, material, even fiscal--seem to be present at SIUE, as do the commitment and the will. I thus wish my Edwardsville colleagues well and stand ready to discuss, clarify, or amplify my findings or recommendations as needed.
Respectfully submitted,
Reynold Feldman
Chicago, June 12, 1987
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Appendix 1: Dr. Feldman's Schedule
Appendix 2: GEPCI May 26, 1987 meeting minutes