At a research university, General Education programming provides insight into the “big picture” of scholarly inquiry and academic work. Three GE frameworks inform our campus’ program: required institutional courses, integrative GE (core), and a school-based menu system[1]. Our campus’ GE design, particularly the core series, has been informed by national priorities to enrich disciplinary outcomes and provide an integrative undergraduate experience. A thriving and developed GE program is coordinated to align with an institutional vision, with thoughtful integration into the campus’ research and teaching priorities. As noted in several external reports, our campus’ approach to general education has the potential to be innovative and transformative.

As our campus grows, so too does our need to examine and sustain general education as an institutional priority. Every campus will face infrastructural issues related to GE, as its institutional scale is significant to coordinate and sustain. A truly multidisciplinary general education requires institutional insight and coordination—particularly in rethinking fundamental frameworks for academic inquiry to prepare our students for a range of interdisciplinary challenges in a changing world. In constituting one-third of undergraduate course credit, general education is a significant portion of the undergraduate experience, and thus can provide an “institution-oriented thread” for fruitful exchange among disciplines, programs, and co-curricular activities.

The following elements are part of a strategic vision of General Education:

(1)    Innovative GE programming blends cutting edge research with a commitment to educating each undergraduate as a “whole person;”

(2)    GE allows our campus to build across traditional disciplines and “think like an institution,” reflecting what it means to attend a research university;

(3)    A core model, combined with a deliberate and well defined GE menu of defined outcomes, provides our campus with a rich, innovative and robust GE program;

(4)    By preparing students to engage with complex problems, GE can foster scholarly inquiry of both integrative breadth and discipline-specific depth.

We are at a critical moment, then, as our campus has recently hired a permanent Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education. With this momentum, we have the opportunity to address structural barriers to multidisciplinary endeavors that benefit not only GE but all collaborative programming. Our upcoming GE program review process is certainly one important means to plan and evaluate GE, with insights from an external team. Some GE needs are immediate and fundamental, however – in need of immediate attention. Addressing a set of foundational issues that UCM GE reports have identified since 2002 would address immediate campus needs and strengthen the GE program review process.  In sum, coordination of GE curricula and infrastructure would allow Senate faculty to define and strengthen institutional learning opportunities, to evaluate GE learning outcomes, and to unify concepts about UCM’s undergraduate degree.

Based on GE reports from 2002 to present, national models, and education scholarship, our strategic vision involves five high priority recommendations. Fundamentally, these recommendations promote multidisciplinary educational opportunities for undergraduates and graduate student instructors:

(1)    Constitute the College One Executive Committee with representative GE faculty from all Schools, parallel to the process of forming graduate groups;

(2)    Coordinate foundational lower-division courses into GE co-enrollments to strengthen multidisciplinary learning outcomes as well as foundational discipline-specific knowledge[2].

(3)    Develop a L(P)SOE position for General Education to coordinate co-enrollments, supervise institutional GE curricula and communicate GE educational outcomes via the Senate, VPDUE, Student Affairs, and School Deans.

(4)    Initiate a % FTE reward system for participating Senate faculty in institutionally-focused GE programming (Core 1 module planning, learning communities, service learning projects, etc.).

(5)    Support future faculty with graduate instructor opportunities to participate in teaching GE courses, including interdisciplinary pedagogical training and GE teaching assignments.

The above recommendations would address fundamental issues and advance our campus’ decade of GE planning. In sum, not only do we need to consider the position of GE outcomes relative to disciplines and the institution, we also need to define the undergraduate experience. As the 2011 GE committee suggests, our general education curriculum “is considered by many to be the world’s best, blending cutting edge research with a commitment to educating each undergraduate as, in John Dewey’s words, a whole person.”

If our campus acts on this strategic vision and recommendations, our campus has much to gain with continuing to plan GE as among the intellectual drivers at our campus. GE could be the coordinating entity for lower-division elective course outcomes, typically overlooked in planning or reviewing major programs. Community engaged scholarship, including service learning initiatives and curricula, could have a home and means for ongoing sustainability. Multidisciplinary undergraduate programs and co-curriculum would have the means to coordinate, collaborate, and plan – much like current graduate programming now at our campus. Finally, as graduate programs grow, a GE program (with dedicated faculty governance) in partnership with the Merritt Writing Program could employ and educate graduate students to teach GE courses to strengthen future faculty preparation.

Many promising outcomes can come from identifying a sustainable means to “think like an institution,” particularly with undergraduate programming. We recommend, then, that our campus acts on these long-standing recommendations so our campus can grow a vibrant and integrative GE program.