On Friday, I spent much of the day at a retreat on improving General Education at Penn State. The day was a great opportunity to share thoughts about this important part of teaching and learning. I came away from the day with four reflections that I’ll share over the next few days.

Reflection 1–Are Themes the Best Path to the Goal?: One of the emerging ideas about how to improve General Education at Penn State has been to organize some portion of the credits in General Education around a unifying theme, often presented as an interdisciplinary collection of courses with a repeated emphasis that includes both introductory and advanced courses. It’s an interesting idea and could well address the concern that students don’t find their General Education courses to be meaningful because they are just a grab-bag of unconnected experiences.

The question I have is whether a theme based General Education is the best path to the goal.  Within that overall question, I think there are several others. There are many challenges for themes to overcome.  Students need the flexibility to change their mind about their education and the ability to change campuses, majors, and General Education themes without paying too high a price in time and cost. Will themes allow the flexibility and portability that students at a large, complex university need?

Disciplines and departments need the ability to connect General Education to how these courses build the foundations and/or breadth and depth needed for their fields. The thematic approach sometimes seems to assume a narrow disciplinary viewpoint of the purpose of General Education. A student who has a strict disciplinary major certainly may need a thematic General Education that provides a multidisciplinary foundation or complement to the major.  But, is that the right General Education for a student studying in a multidisciplinary field, which already has a thematic element? Will a theme based General Education be able to meet the need of  students in disciplinary and multidisciplinary fields, students in liberal arts and professional fields, and all the other types of study students can select at a university like Penn State?

A theme-based General Education is one way to address concerns about whether students find meaning in this part of their education, but there are other concerns and other paths. The original report to Faculty Senate in October 2012 listed the following concerns:

• Lack of Familiarity with Learning Goals
• Confusion Regarding Course Types
• Heavy Reliance on Non-standing Faculty
• Questions about General Education Rigor

The report itself is light on comprehensive information regarding any of those concerns.  The first appears largely based on a survey using a convenience sample of faculty and students, but no comprehensive report of the survey methods or results is provided. The second references no data or analysis. The third appears to use Penn State data on teaching, but again no comprehensive information on methods or results is shared. The fourth uses data on Penn State grades. Again, no comprehensive summary of the methods or results are provided, and the report itself notes that the level of rigor varies dramatically across certain types of General Education courses. Some are more rigorous than the average course. Others are not.

Thus, from the beginning (and I would say continuing to this day, as in none of the efforts have I seen a comprehensive assessment of these or other concerns), there has been a lack of clear analysis of the problems in General Education. And, even today, we are already drawing conclusions about the appropriate path to the goal when we have not even clearly analyzed the problem. Equally troubling is the fact that we have yet to even define the goals and objectives of a new General Education. Having just attended the State College High School production of Alice, I’m reminded of the quote:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Before selecting the path, I think we ought to be sure we understand the problems and know where we want to get to. Many people believe there are multiple concerns and problems in General Education. There is no necessary connection between themes and rigor or involvement of standing faculty or other concerns. While themes may address concern about the meaning of General Education for some students, what does it do to solve the other concerns that have been raised?

Finally, themes are not the only option. Other universities are looking at more of a “badged” approach to General Education. Students already have opportunities to “theme” their education, using minors, and some universities look to incorporate themes through making minors part of General Education. And some of the concerns raised may be as much about our own failure to adequately communicate and manage the existing General Education, rather than a signal that the current system must be abandoned.

Looking through the various reports provided, I have not seen a detailed comparison of the different options, their strengths and weaknesses in addressing the problems and meeting the goals, and a clear explanation for why a thematic approach is better than other options. What are the goals and objectives of General Education at Penn State? What is the best curricular structure and process to achieving those goals, given our unique features and challenges? Are themes the best solution to giving Penn State undergraduates meaning in General Education? Are themes part of the best solution to the other concerns voiced about General Education?

Before advancing down a particular path, I think we ought to provide our colleagues, our students and the public with better information and more complete answers to these types of questions.