Chapter 5
Academic Programs

 

Program Governance: the General Education Committee (GEC)

Like other standing committees at SVSU, the GEC is composed of faculty members elected from each of the curricular units, administrative appointments (one of whom chairs the committee), and a student representative.

The GEC is charged with three main functions:

Any curricular changes approved by the GEC must also be approved by the Curriculum and Academic Policies Committee and then brought to the faculty for ratification. As with all curricular matters, forums may be held for fuller discussion of the issues prior to the ratification meetings.

This new GEC began accepting faculty proposals for courses, and SVSU first offered courses under the new GE Program in Fall 2001.

Description of the New General Education Program

The new General Education Program is designed to ensure breadth of knowledge and to promote intellectual inquiry. SVSU’s General Education Program comprises 35 credit hours in 10 categories, each with a learning objective, a required number of credit hours, and an approved group of courses from which to choose. All courses currently accepted into the program have undergone the course approval process governed by the GEC and received five-year terms in the program. When courses are revised and/or resubmitted during or after this term, those submitting courses will be required to make use of ongoing assessment information to demonstrate the value of their courses to the program.

The new program currently has 58 courses organized in the ten content categories (Literature, Arts, Numerical Understanding, Natural Sciences, Historical and Philosophical Understanding, Social Sciences, Social Institutions, International Systems, Oral Communication, and Written Communication). In addition to courses in literature, oral communication, and written communication categories, students must also complete two courses from different categories that are communication intensive (designated [CI]). Freshman composition, now a pre-requisite for many GE courses, has developed into a fully coordinated program with best practices and a grading rubric which establishes consistency in instruction and evaluation. The program was effective Fall 2001 for all new “first time in college” students.

Course proposals are required to speak to the program’s main goals, i.e., to develop students’ capacity to think critically, reason logically, and communicate effectively in a wide range of fields in preparation for their majors. Courses are also required to address the learning objective specific to the course’s category (e.g., a student outcome in the literature category is “to learn to read major literary works critically with appreciation and understanding”).

Courses must also adhere to the set of descriptive criteria for the particular category. For example, literature courses must include the following:

Diversity in the General Education Program

The General Education Program embraces multiculturalism, diversity, and consideration of personal, social, and civic values. However, it is the intent of the university not to confine considerations of diversity to specific courses or categories. The defined criteria of each category mandate that courses consider diversity as it relates to that category. For example, any course accepted into the literature category must “consider literature from multiple cultures (within or across national contexts).” In the arts category, courses must “consider differing concepts of ‘aesthetic value’” and “consider art from multiple cultures (within or across national contexts).”

The categories and courses within categories provide students with multi-cultural perspectives. For example, Category I course English 204, Thematic Approaches to Literature, has been taught as American Multicultural Literature. In Category V, the U.S. and World History Surveys consider such topics as slavery in the U.S. and Latin America, the Civil Rights Movement, Islamic trade empires, or the partition of Africa. Many other individual courses touch on difference in terms of gender, class, ethnicity, and other constituent parts of identity. Courses in Category Eight, International Systems, have stated objectives that students will “understand the nature of significant international systems and step outside of the constraints of their own society.”

Support Programs and Services for General Education

SVSU learning resources and support services are available to help all students achieve learning goals; these are particularly important to help GE students establish a strong foundation. University services range from guidance to resource centers for Math, Writing, Career Planning and Placement, as well as Disability Services. Support services have appropriate and convenient physical spaces and are equipped with the technologies necessary for carrying out their work.

Because the writing requirements are intensive in this program, Writing Center services are in high demand. All freshman composition courses now include instructional sessions in both the Library and the Writing Center. Faculty from disciplines such as science and art who now include writing assignments in their courses have received assistance on how to do this effectively. Faculty may further hone their skills by tutoring in the Writing Center. Handouts on a variety of writing topics and documentation styles are widely used across campus. Writing Center staff also consult on an individual basis with faculty and offer a number of workshops.

A similar range of services is provided by the Math Resource Center, which hosts approximately 5000 individual tutoring sessions yearly. The Math Resource Center tests and retests students for appropriate course placement, gaining significant insights into the problems of students in dealing with mathematics. These insights are shared with Math Department faculty to help shape an effective mathematics curriculum.

Both centers serve other programs in addition to General Education and are also discussed in the context of Academic Support presented below. The Library also offers instruction, technology resources, and databases utilized by GE faculty and students; it is discussed in detail in the Academic Support section below as well as in Chapter 4 on Resources.

General Education Program Assessment

Assessment activities have been developed to evaluate the General Education Program and help determine its effectiveness in reaching its program goals:

Because the process of revising the General Education Program at SVSU was lengthy and complex, data on student learning outcomes and programmatic assessment is still being gathered. The assessment process, however, has been established and will be used in conjunction with information from the course evaluations and standardized test data to determine the effectiveness of the new program. The University has twice presented at the HLC/NCA Annual Meeting on its revision process for the program.