Director of General Education Kenton Bird started his presentation at Tuesday”s Faculty Senate meeting on a note of optimism.
“The end is in sight,” Bird said.
Faculty Senate voted to pass two proposed changes in regard to General Education that Bird brought up. The first change would add the university-wide learning outcomes to the UI catalog. Bird said the outcomes are already featured on the university website and many class syllabi.
The university learning outcomes include five principles – learn and integrate, think and create, communicate, clarify purpose and perspective, and practice citizenship.
Faculty Sen. Alan Caplan of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences asked what the impact of adding the learning outcomes to the catalog would be. He said he was somewhat uncomfortable with some of the language regarding the university”s purpose.
“Just to be clear, nothing”s changed with the university learning outcomes,” said Faculty Sen. Jodi Nicotra of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences.
Bird said the outcomes act as a record for the faculty”s intention for General Education and is somewhat of a foundational document, like a constitution.
The second major change would broaden the American diversity and international requirement to include any General Education course in another category outside of the courses specifically listed as American diversity and international courses. Before, classes in social sciences, humanities or ISEM 301 counted as international or American diversity.
The change stemmed from a request from faculty to include core science courses to the list of courses that would file under the American diversity or international requirement, Bird said. Now it”s expanded to all General Education courses, so a course on the history of mathematics could satisfy a student”s international requirement if approved, he said.
“The expression in advising circles is to “double dip,”” Bird said.
This change was approved without comments from Faculty Senate. Both changes were passed with one opposed and three abstentions.
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ErinBamer