General Education Changes by Peter Dendle
This report is to provide a bit more clarification about the Gen Ed curricular changes that have just passed the Senate. Some of these changes will have significant repercussions, especially for advisors and for those who teach Gen Ed courses – which at Mont Alto is most of us.
As you know, a Gen Ed Task Force has been working with faculty, students, and administration for several years now to explore the possibility of restructuring our Gen Ed curriculum. The last set of major revisions to the Gen Ed curriculum was several decades ago, and Penn State now lags behind many benchmark institutions in employing up to date pedagogical terminology and approaches to undergraduate general education. Through the process, a wide range of reforms were considered, major and minor. The final suite of reforms brought to the Senate and approved are as follows:
1.) Revise the current statement on General Education goals to include updated “Learning Objectives”: Effective Communication, Key Literacies, Critical and Analytical Thinking, Integrative Thinking, Creative Thinking, Global Learning, Social Responsibility and Ethical Thinking. (To see them explained in more detail, see http://senate.psu.edu/senators/agendas-records/april-28-2015-agenda/appendix-b/part-i-recommendations-on-the-learning-objectives-and-curricular-assessment/.)
2.) A regular and ongoing assessment plan for Gen Ed should be developed, and the findings should be used to address areas for refinement and improvement. The current suite of revisions is not meant to be final or unchangeable, but is expected to be tweaked and adapted as necessary.
3.) Rename “Health and Physical Activity” (GHA) to “Health and Wellness” (GHW).
4.) Rename the “Skills” component of General Education to “Foundations” and rename the “Knowledge Domains” to “Breadth Across Domains.”
5.) Require a C or better in GWS courses (Writing and Speaking Courses, including ENGL 015, 030, and 202 and CAS 100) and require a C or better in GQ courses (Quantitative Courses, including MATH 017, 021, and 022).
6.) This is the major set of curricular revisions: (a) Require 6 credits of Integrative Studies as part of the General Education Baccalaureate requirements; (b) create inter-domain courses as a way for students to accomplish the Integrative Studies requirement; (c) create linked courses as a way to offer the Integrative Studies component; (d) replace the “9-6-3” substitution with the more flexible “Move 3” substitution; and (e) allow an Integrative Studies course to satisfy the flexible 3 credits of exploration within the Associate Degree General Education curriculum.
Thus there is no mention of “themes,” for instance, though that had been a much-discussed possibility for a while. The heart of the matter, as I see it, is requiring 6 new credits of “Integrative Studies” – the rest of recommendation 6 is built around that. Campuses and units are asked to begin thinking about what “inter-domain” courses they could be developing that would satisfy that for students. These could be either single courses developed to be inter-domain, or cross-linked pairs of courses. The latter idea is not far from some cross-listed courses that already exist on the books, such as ENGL 233/CHEM 233 (Chemistry and Literature). Further details about the recommended scope and content of these inter-domain courses may be forthcoming at a later time, but for the moment, it seems like a good idea at Mont Alto to begin thinking about linked areas of study that could naturally and profitably be paired into such a course. Instructors from different disciplines are encouraged to find genuine points of “integration” between their fields, that reflect the strengths of the campus and of faculty, and that would be of interest to students. Beyond those broad parameters, there are very few specifics yet at this stage. Some more specifics may come later, but I think the idea is really that we are encouraged to pick up the ball and be proactive in thinking about how this new structure would make the make the most sense for us. This should be an opportunity for us to craft and shape something meaningful to us. Currently the Task Force report supporting the recommendations indicates that the “inter-domain” courses should all be at the 200-level, but that language is not in the Senate legislation itself, and in any event may be modified at a subsequent stage.
At the April 28 Commonwealth Caucus meeting, a representative from the Senate Curricular Affairs Committee announced that they are ready to process as many new course proposals as necessary to make Gen Ed implementation smooth, and to help make sure everything is in place prior to roll-out. The new requirements may be phased in, giving time for campuses and units to set up a meaningful curriculum right for that campus/unit. There is not yet a precise time-line for the roll-out.
The last provisions (“replace the ‘9-6-3’ substitution with the more flexible ‘Move 3’ substitution; and allow an Integrative Studies course to satisfy the flexible 3 credits of exploration within the Associate Degree General Education curriculum”) are meant to create more flexibility in a student’s curricular requirements, as a means of offsetting the two extra required courses.
Overall, these changes are not that fundamental or sweeping. It will require an adjustment, especially for advisors, to acclimate to the new terminology and to understand the new requirements. There is plenty of time for that yet, especially as more details have yet to be worked out.
So what happens next? Essentially, now that a broad new curricular structure is in place, some more focused working groups will be formed to start ironing out the details of what that will look like in practice:
“Senate officers will identify groups or individuals to develop an effective and consultative implementation plan for approved recommendations. The timeline for implementation will need to be carefully considered and is not determined or prescribed at this time. Some changes, such as name changes to categories, might be implemented almost immediately. For other changes, factors such as the incorporation of requirements into LionPATH and degree audits; support and education for instructors, advisers, and other staff; the number of proposals required for course-creation, revision, and review; and publicity informing students and other stakeholders will need to be considered in determining an implementation timeline.”
So it’s the beginning of the process, not the end. Provost Nicholas Jones has already pledged institutional support for the Gen Ed changes, and for helping to make development and implementation successful. This includes support for a devoted Gen Ed Institute, which the faculty Senate requested at the Jan. 27 meeting. Presumably, the Institute should form a central base of operations for resources and materials to ensure Gen Ed faculty are properly trained and supported, and to provide ongoing assessment for the Gen Ed curriculum. However, it remains to be seen exactly what it will look like, or what its relationship will be with the campus locations.
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With your permission, at this point I’ll inject a bit of personal opinion on all of this. Like many of you, I have been skeptical and perplexed through the various stages of this Gen Ed reform process. Sometimes it seemed as though the decisions were being made by some inner cadre, while at other times we were flooded with requests for input and overwhelmed with information about possible directions. Prospective reforms brought up for consideration sometimes seemed unnecessarily complicated – or just plain unnecessary. They raised lots of concerns about how the nuts & bolts would impact faculty, advisors, and students, especially at smaller campus locations. It is understandable that many of us have been a little frustrated or confused by the course of the discussions.
Having said that, I really think that the Task Force delivered a set of reforms that are impressive in their manageable scope on the one hand, and their potential for curricular creativity and innovation on the other. It’s a testament to the Task Force that their results have been criticized for being too ambitious and sweeping, as well as for being too minor and inconsequential – that contradiction should at least show that they navigated a narrow strait. There was never going to be a reform package that pleased everyone. Many of the proposals discussed along the way were quite complicated, and this final proposal seems to me fairly straightforward. Whether or not it works will be up to us. Having considered the proposal, I’ve realized that my own attitude toward the whole thing has now shifted from skepticism to enthusiasm. I look forward now to the excitement of course development. It can’t hurt us to rethink our course offerings once every few decades, and to try to do so in a way that maps onto current scholarship, student interests, and contemporary pedagogy.
There will of course be more frustrations ahead, and if some components of the new reforms aren’t working, we’ll have to go back and fix them. These reforms all passed the Senate by a wide margin, which was by no means a given. There was actually a lot of resistance, even in the January meeting when the Task Force started formally presenting their initial proposals. I think it’s a good sign that in the end, most senators were favorably impressed by what the Task Force was able to come up with. I hope many of you will join me in embracing the new reforms in a spirit of open-mindedness. They were never intended to annoy anyone or to further constrict curricular progress – they were meant to generate new inspiration and creativity, and it will be up to us to color in exactly what that will look like.
Adventures lie ahead, no doubt. In any event, thank you for reading through all of this – I know it’s a lot of information – and for the indulgence of including my two cents.
