The March 23, 1998 NCA Final Report called for a Progress Report on the General Education Program at Michigan Technological University (MTU (p. 51). NCA noted that the transition to semesters had prompted a number of major changes in curriculum, not least in General Education. NCA noted that MTU students scored better on quantitative and writing standardized tests than all other comparable universities. Nevertheless, NCA identified a lack of coherence in the General Education program, weak assessment, a tendency to downplay this aspect of MTU education in university materials, and the potential to use the transition to enhance General Education across the university. Because MTU was at that time in the midst of reformulating General Education, this aspect of education was not evaluated at the last review. This is our Progress Report.

As at other universities, General Education serves two main purposes at MTU. First, it provides the initial grounding in what have been called the ‘liberal arts’-math, sciences, humanities and social sciences. Second, the distribution list portion serves to reinforce and broaden the initial base provided by the four General Education core courses (hereinafter referred to as “core courses” or “the core”). For liberal arts students, the distribution courses also permit students to take some engineering courses, which is a broadening experience (see discussion in NCA Report, pg 6). Combined, the core and distribution of General Education prepare the student for additional work in the major, lay the foundation necessary for any of the professions, and prepare the student for living and acting in the larger world for the rest of his or her life. As we have recently begun to explain it to our students, “Complex people living in a complicated world need General Education.”

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Process Used to Create the General Education Program

The NCA report suggested that broad participation in the formulation of General Education would be a good idea (p. 6). The university created a General Education Taskforce to outline the new program. The Taskforce was composed of individuals from all academic departments and many administrative units, for example, the library, and student affairs. It met for nearly two years. Among other things, the faculty sought to enhance MTU’s strengths in interdisciplinary teaching in General Education (NCA Report, pg. 7) and to improve the coherence of the program. When the new program was sufficiently structured in terms of content and how it would be administered to warrant a vote, it was presented to the University Senate. The Senate presented it the faculty, who voted it in on November 4, 1998. In sum, there was very broad participation by the faculty in determining the nature of the General Education program.

To manage the day-to-day affairs of General Education, the proposal approved by the faculty included the creation of a General Education Council (Fig. 1). This council monitors, assesses, makes policy for, and manages the General

Figure 1.

Education Program. It meets approximately every two weeks to review new and on-going issues. It is currently composed of coordinators or representatives for all components of the General Education program: four core courses, math/sciences, the distribution, and co-curricular courses. In addition, representatives from the library, the Writing Center (one of the four General Education-related student learning centers), student affairs, and undergraduate student government serve on the committee. On one occasion in AY2001-02, the council needed policy input from the Deans and a joint meeting with the Dean’s Council was held. In the event a major alteration to the structure of General Education were proposed, a General Education Taskforce, much like the original taskforce, would be created. Moreover, any major structural change would have to be approved by another vote of the faculty with the vote managed by the University Senate.

Pilots of three of the new four core courses for first-year students and second-year students, discussed below, were tested in academic year 99/00. The new requirements went into full effect in Fall 2000. This fall, 2002, represents the third year in which entering students experience the new program.

At the outset, the new program was funded through a series of one-time allocations. This weakness is being corrected. Much of the budget is now in the university’s base budget, and we do not expect the program will rely on one-time allocations by AY04. In 2002-03 General Education has a budget of $314,787 which includes $17,265 for fringe benefits. Excluding fringe benefits, the amount is $297,522. Approximately $250,000 goes to fund the freshman seminar course called Perspectives on Inquiry UN1001 (or simply Perspectives), the remainder provides a Director, supports annual assessment and faculty training, and supports some core course coordinators. The money for Perspectives is returned to departments who offer Perspectives courses and put into their Services, Supplies and Expendibles (SS&E) accounts. In AY03, General Education will also have an SS&E account. This will make it far easier to support initiatives related to the four university core courses. In addition, the university has established a process whereby increases in student enrollment in departmental majors yields increases in the funding for General Education. The first implementation of that process came in December 2002.

Description of the Program:

There are 44 semester hours of General Education. The flow of the courses is offered in graphic format in Appendix C, p. 42.

· Four core courses taken by all MTU students over their first two years at MTU. 13 semester hours. In the first year, students take Perspectives on Inquiry and World Cultures (UN1002); in the second year, they take Revisions (UN2001) and Institutions (UN2002). Students may substitute two semesters of foreign language study, plus a World Cultures arts lab for the World Cultures course. These four courses are not designated by department but listed as UN (university) courses .

· Distribution. 15 semester credit hours. Six hours must be from one of three lists flowing from World Cultures and six hours must be from one of two lists flowing from Institutions. The remaining three hours are left to the student’s choice from any of the lists. Nine hours must be at the 3000 level or higher.

· Math and science. 16 semester credit hours minimum. A science course must include a laboratory. Because of the technical nature of virtually all our major degrees, each department was allowed to specify the courses needed to meet this requirement.

● Three units, often broken into ½ credit units, of co-curricular, non academic

credit. At present most of these are in Physical Education. These credits are

reflected on the student’s transcript, but not counted in Grade Point Averages

(GPA) . The plan in the future is to add other courses and activities that meet

this requirement.

Coherence

As noted at the outset of this Progress Report, one of the main concerns raised in the NCA report was whether MTU had a coherent General Education program. This is a common concern in the United States. As the AACU’s 2002 Greater Expectations report noted, many believe that general education has become a hodge-podge in American universities and that there is an unnecessary distinction between practical and liberal education. We believe we do have a coherent program, moreover faculty across campus participate meaningfully to achieve this coherence.

Sometimes it helps to start with a definition. According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (Merriam Webster, 1986), in order for various elements to cohere they must be “fittingly connected or unified by certain principles, relationships, or themes esp. in the study or presentation of one purpose or idea." Achieving coherence requires creating a logical, congruent, consistent interrelationship among all the parts. Coherence also requires that the connection among the elements be characterized by order, proportion, and similarity of tone.

Based on the defining characteristics noted above, MTU’s General Education program is characterized by coherence. As listed in the Undergraduate Catalog AY 2000-2002, the first goal targets the development of the “fundamental scholastic habits of careful reading, critical reasoning, balanced analysis and argument.” Attainment of these habits is supported by the other common goals of the core courses: the application of “multiple disciplinary perspectives in interpretation, analysis, and creative problem solving”; “respect for diversity”; “awareness of complex contexts”; and “knowledge of a broad range of topics and disciplines complementary to the major.” In sum, the core courses, required of every baccalaureate student, are designed to develop active engagement in learning, university-level habits of mind, and integration within and across disciplines. Two of the core courses, World Cultures and Institutions, serve as prerequisites for the Distribution Courses.

The defining focus providing coherence among the Distribution Courses is evidenced by the Distribution list titles. Three Distribution lists flow from the grounding in World Cultures: 1) Language, Thought and Value; 2) Aesthetics and Creativity; 3) Histories and Cultures. Two Distribution lists flow from the work in Institutions: 4) Science, Technology and Society; and 5) Politics, Economics, and Social Institutions. Requiring all students to take coursework from a list that ties back to the core courses, plus additional work from any Distribution list, encourages a continuity of exposure to the core courses while fostering the exploration of other subject matter.

In addition, the NCA Report noted approvingly that MTU might provide for minors (p. 6) after the Semester transition. Minors were implemented and have become increasingly popular with the students. In Fall 2002, there were 32 students seeking dual majors, 117 students going after a dual degree, and 186 students pursuing a minor. The creation of minors and the continuation of dual degree/majors programs address the potential student need for even tighter coherence in a given area than the General Education provides.

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Educational Objectives of General Education:

The Core Four

Perspectives is a small (22 students per section), first year seminar designed primarily to engage students in the process of learning through discussion, extensive writing, public speaking, and the visual presentation of information. All new first year students take it in the Fall of their first year; transfer students take it in the Spring of their first year at MTU. We sought to model to our students that faculty from all fields valued General Education. Thus, faculty from all Colleges and Schools teach Perspectives courses. About 60% of the seminars are taught by MTU tenured or tenure-track faculty. The remaining seminars are taught by well-qualified adjunct instructors. All instructors must submit their idea for a seminar for approval by the Perspectives subcommittee (made up of Perspectives instructors). All instructors get a faculty guide and virtually all participate in our regular training. In addition, all faculty are invited to participate in periodic lunches to discuss assessment and other issues facing them as they teach Perspectives. As Meacham (2002) and Elman (2002) have noted, regular training, conversation and support for all faculty, adjunct and tenure track, matters to high quality teaching.

World Cultures is a large lecture class with an arts lab. Students take it in the second semester of their first year. It surveys different human societies over time and sets out main ideas for the study of cultures today and in the past. It contributes to teaching about diversity, multiculturalism, geography, and globalization. The lab offers students an opportunity to experience different cultures through films, art, and live performances at MTU’s new Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. This course is taught by faculty from Fine Arts, Humanities and the Social Sciences Departments. The faculty produces a study guide for the lab each year. On advice from the World Cultures representative on the General Education Council, the Director of General Education negotiates the performances and the creation of the lab manual.

Revisions returns students to a small seminar setting for direct writing instruction. Students take this course in one of their sophomore year semesters. The students do a series of linked writing assignments that culminate in a research essay. Approximately 80% of the time is devoted to writing, with the remainder given to oral presentation and the visual presentation of information. This course is taught by graduate teaching instructors in the Humanities Department. Extensive orientation is provided to all GTAs and each GTA also takes a year-long graduate course on teaching. A faculty member in Humanities coordinates this effort with the Director of General Education.

Institutions is a medium-sized enrollment course (~75) devoted to introduction to the social sciences, particularly economics and government. It is taught by faculty from the Social Sciences Department and from the School of Business and Economics. The aim of the course is to show that social structures ranging from the family to national governments or the global economy are a) different from just adding up individuals and can thus be studied on their own and b) exert strong influences on individual behaviors. The faculty created a list of core concepts and a reader. The faculty will be revising the reader this academic year in light of our experiences. The faculty representative on the General Education Council coordinates with the Director of General Education on matters associated with this course.

Appendix A includes summaries of the goals, learning outcomes, and current assessment tools for the four core courses.

The Distribution and Math/Sciences Courses

Distribution Courses. Virtually all the courses on the five distribution lists come from the College of Sciences and Arts and from the School of Business and Economics. That said, however, the College of Engineering has 11 courses on the lists and the School of Forestry has 13. At present, the School of Technology does not have courses on the lists. Virtually all distribution courses are taught by tenured/tenure track faculty. The first cohort of students who began their General Education under the new system began the distribution sequence in earnest in Fall 2002, though some began taking courses in the distribution during their first and second years.

Math/Sciences. Because each major demands different levels of foundational knowledge and skills in math and science, we left requirement particulars to the departments. Consequently, the math/science requirement did not receive much attention by the General Education Taskforce. The math and sciences departments were told that a consideration of the learning outcomes, etc., would get taken up once the new core was well underway—and the math/science departments had had time to adjust to the semesters. The Director of General Education has offered to initiate this discussion, if the departments are so inclined. In the meantime, Math has developed departmental goals for mathematics courses and assesses them. In spring 2003, the Deans of Engineering and of Sciences and Arts will be launching a planned joint initiative to share information about first and second year math/sciences/engineering fundamentals courses.

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Support to Students for General Education

College 101

Students whose preparation suggests a need for a “college 101” experience are counseled to take UN1000, taught by the office of Dean of Students. This is a one credit pass/fail course; it may count as a free elective credit. It teaches study skills and other ways of coping with a university. The Department of Physical Education provides a study skills course to varsity athletes. As NCA knows, MTU athletes have higher GPA’s than the university average and many end up on state, regional and national varsity-scholars lists.

Learning Centers

Writing Center. Students with English and/or Reading ACTs of 19 or below have a one-credit course called ‘Perspectives Coaching” (HU0121) placed on their initial schedules. This credit represents weekly one-to-one coaching offered through the MTU Writing Center. At an orientation meeting, students are told about the benefits of having a weekly appointment for coaching on the reading and writing they do in the Perspectives class. Students are then asked to make a decision to either drop the credit or keep it by making a weekly appointment with a writing coach for the semester. Evidence from retention monitoring indicates that the students who keep the credit and sign up for a weekly appointment are more likely to succeed in the course and to return to the university the following year.

All students can also get “walk-in” consultations on writing at the Center, and Perspectives faculty are invited to encourage their students to use the Center because all writers can benefit from another pair of eyes. The writing center also provides coaches for voluntary World Cultures study teams. Participation in the teams grew from 90 to 270 in just two years.

Other learning centers for math, physics, and chemistry provide similar support for students in the basic math/science distribution courses. The Chemistry learning center offers individual, pair, and team coaching to students. Preliminary evidence suggests that team coaching is exceptionally effective for both Chemistry and the Writing Center’s World Cultures. Currently, the university is studying the impact of all learning centers and the best ways to support them.

Library. All Perspectives students get library instruction. The library has offered key information literacy learning outcomes for consideration by both the General Education and University Assessment Councils. We hope to incorporate them throughout our university curriculum. The library also intends to begin work on World Wide Web-based learning modules to extend the “library” instruction well beyond Perspectives.

Appendix B offers evidence on participation in the library orientation, the Writing Center and assessment of UN1000.

Advising. Students get their primary advising on General Education courses from their departments. By and large this advising is accurate. Improved explanation of General Education at the first year orientation also seems to be helping. In addition, the course coordinators, the director of General Education, and the administrative associate in the Office of the Vice Provost for Instruction also provide guidance on courses, progress to degree, and other advising issues. Both Math and Chemistry take considerable care in placing first year students into courses where they can succeed.

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Assessment of General Education

The NCA Report indicated considerable progress in MTU’s assessment program and said the university met this institutional requirement, but the team expected to see more effort at the next visit. MTU is developing its assessment programs on a broad front, as shown in its description of assessment in the Undergraduate Catalog. As we continue to develop assessment at MTU, we seek to build sound linkages between General Education and the majors. At present, we are mapping the curriculum on high level outcomes, such as being effective communicators. We intend to use the mapping exercise to improve our capacity to understand more about what our students learn over their entire education at MTU. For example, natural science and engineering faculty who had also taught Perspectives noted that students wrote reasonably well in Perspectives, but then seemed to forget all about writing in labs they taught. This has led to preliminary discussions about how to set high expectations for all forms of writing. In addition, the student representative to the Assessment Council, the President of the undergraduate student government, and the coordinator for assessment have begun conversations on how to bring students into the assessment process more effectively. NCA’s Levels of Implementation is the basis for the discussion. In addition, this past year, all departments were asked to rate themselves on the Levels of Implementation as part of their annual assessment activities update.

The NCA Report (p. 51) asked for information on the assessment of General Education in this Progress Report. The report noted that the new General Education program might require new means of assessment (Concern #1). The NCA team was correct. We have a process, plan, and many of the key instruments in place. They are discussed below.

Early on, the General Education Council developed a timeline for completing assessment plans and operations for General Education. Figure 2 presents that plan. We are doing well in meeting the timeline we set for ourselves three years ago. World Cultures and Revisions have collected both direct and indirect measures of student learning and closed the loop between assessment and improvement more than once. In Fall 2002, we purchased electronic “instant survey” equipment, which had been used successfully in the Department of Biology to improve student learning. We plan to experiment in World Cultures and Institutions with the use of the equipment and may eventually fold the information in to our assessment of these courses. For Perspectives we have indirect evidence that the course outcomes are being achieved and a plan to consider ways to acquire more direct measures. Data collection and sound assessment instruments for Institutions are still immature and the loop has not been closed. There is a plan for a new effort to assess this course.

Coherence Assessment

Now that we have two years experience with the program and preliminary assessment information, our faculty has begun to ask if the four core courses actually seem coherent to students. We plan to work with students in Spring 2003 to get a sense of this issue. Meanwhile, as noted earlier, the university Assessment Council is mapping communications, quantitative and scientific reasoning, and diversity/globalization throughout the curriculum over the entire undergraduate experience.

Some individual departments have evidence on the impact of General Education on their majors. We are in the midst of finding ways to use departmental information to understand General Education better. All colleges are willing to include a few General Education questions in their senior and alumni surveys. In addition, the university participated in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which we use as benchmark evidence on the effectiveness of the General Education program.

FIGURE 2

Distribution courses

There has been no assessment of the distribution courses yet, because students have just begun taking distribution courses in 2002. We planned at the outset to address the issue in AY2002-03 and have begun to do so ( see Figure 2). Our current thinking on the matter is to launch a continuous process and then slowly select the methods of assessment that prove most valuable. We may use the following process: Six distribution courses per semester will be selected for assessment. With assistance from the Director of General Education, the faculty member teaching the course will identify key learning outcomes for the course relative to General Education and propose a means to measure those outcomes. The plans and results will be presented once a year to the General Education and University Assessment Councils. The Director of General Education will include a description of the efforts in his/her annual assessment update. Because General Education is critical to ABET accreditation, we may also request that the faculty selected each year indicate which learning outcomes desired by ABET are addressed in the distribution course.

The down side to that proposed process, of course, that it will not go far in helping us assess the overall impact of the Distribution lists. The upside is that all distribution faculty would be brought into the assessment process, we would generate a number of potential methods, and we might discover that most faculty choose one or two similar methods. Last but not least, it is a process that can be implemented readily. We may also use some of the same questions in distribution evaluations as asked in Perspectives to build a larger picture of student affective responses to the distribution courses.

Math/Science

There has been no assessment of overall effectiveness for math and science. However, pursuant to the original assessment plan shown in Fig. 2, discussions began this year. At present, there is considerable direct assessment of course outcomes through departmental assessments of majors and the earlier transition to semesters planning. Moreover a number of the departments are working energetically to improve the early courses.

Physics has launched an aggressive campaign to enhance its curriculum, with two faculty attending a summer institute and on-going participation in project Kaleidoscope.
Math is doing statistical analyses of entering math skills, math placements, and success in later courses. Through their departmental assessment process, the Math department learned about student concerns with GTAs in the early math classes. The department improved GTA training over the past few years in response. In Fall 2002 there were zero student complaints about GTAs in the first three weeks of the term.
In Chemistry, faculty wrote a successful proposal to develop a studio lab approach to first year chemistry. It will be piloted in Spring 2003. The project embodies the best of inquiry-based chemistry instruction, already demonstrated as a better way to teach the core concepts. In particular, the lab will have a computer and data interface for each student, on-demand videos of key technical operations in an experiment, lectures transformed into ‘technique’ sessions, flexible experiment formats whereby students can work alone or with others, and WebCT to unite the course in and out of the studio lab. In addition, an assessment plan has been written for the project. Direct assessment will address content knowledge, student/instructor attitudes, and student/instructor interactions. Indirect assessment will seek to understand the ‘reach’ of the program in terms of its impact in other departments.

Engineering has quite detailed information on math/science skills students do or do not bring to engineering courses from General Education. Few problems seem apparent. Nevertheless, the Deans of Engineering and of Sciences and Arts will design a regular consultation process this year. Once in place, MTU intends to include other MTU schools periodically in those discussions to ensure sound communications on math/sciences General Education across campus.

Meanwhile continuous ad hoc consultation between the university’s colleges and schools reduces further any mismatches. For example, the math department is offering for the first time a “quantitative literacy” course for the majors that do not require calculus, but does require statistics.

Other University Assessment Relevant to General Education

As noted earlier, the University Assessment Council has a year-long project of mapping the MTU educational program.

Recently, TAC/ABET reaccredited the School of Technology. They indicated that the Perspectives and Revisons courses satisfy the writing requirement.

The Department of Chemistry achieved outstanding results for their majors on the ACS exams of chemical knowledge (90^th percentiles), including a capacity to design an experiment. Physics majors have similar successes in their exams. Certainly, the coursework in their majors produces these outcomes, but it is our view that the stunningly high scores could not happen unless the foundational math and science were also sound.

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Examples of What We Are Learning from Assessment of General Education

Here are some illustrations of the state of assessment of General Education at the two-years-into-the-program mark. One of our learning outcomes, particularly for Perspectives, was “increase student engagement with learning.” At first blush, that does not appear too assessable. But, perhaps it is. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) suggests this is happening at MTU. One set of questions in the NSSE addresses collaborative learning. Students are asked if they contributed to class discussion, made a presentation, worked with others on a project inside and outside of class, etc. The Benchmark scores for first-year students were 48.4 for MTU; 39.2 for Doc/Research-Intensive; and 40.9 for the national average. The predicted score for MTU on these measures was 41.4. This left a residual of 7.0, meaning that “students are more engaged in the respective educational practice (and likely benefiting more) than might be expected” (p 1 of NSSE Student Engagement Index 2001 for MTU). The standardized residual of 2.1 “expresses the residual score in standard deviation units…a large, positive SR indicates that your school exceeded its predicted score by more than most other schools” (p 1). That benchmark information has been supplemented by two other sources. We have anecdotal remarks from some faculty in the sciences that their sophomores and juniors are more willing to ask questions and participate in class. Faculty attribute this sudden change to the Perspectives course. As one geologist grudging noted recently, “I hate to admit it, but this General Education seems to be working.” Meanwhile, in a special set of Perspectives evaluation questions, 60% of students agree or strongly agree that the course made them more likely to participate in future university classes. While not direct measures of learning and while we need to share the credit for the outcome with the first year Fundamentals of Engineering sequence taken by many MTU students, the triangulation of indirect measures suggests success in the area of student engagement. We hope to find reasonable and relevant ways to link systematically these partial observations with direct measures of the engagement in learning outcome.

A learning outcome in World Cultures is to “increase understanding and interest in other cultures.” The NSSE has a set of questions devoted to “Enriching Educational Experiences that includes multicultural experiences. Here, for first-year students, MTU had an average of 54.4, a point below the national average of 55.4 and slightly above the average (54.1) for Doctoral/research schools. We are not far off the mark for the nation. Meanwhile the World Cultures faculty have tried the following assessment strategies. Pre- and post- essays to a prompt show a markedly improved capacity to see an issue from different cultural perspectives. That suggests we are having an impact on understanding. What about interest? One finding, clever but admittedly accidental, came from a professor’s pre- and post-questions. He asked students at the start whether they had ever seen a sub-titled movie (part of the arts lab). Ninety percent had never seen one. After the course, 100% had seen one and 70% said they would now be willing to view another subtitled film. We may make this a regular question for all sections of the course. We classify these efforts as moderate assessment successes and the faculty are now at work to improve the course and the assessment instruments.

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Describing General Education to the Larger World

The NCA team suggested “a more positive description in the undergraduate catalogue” (p. 6) and that it be moved to the beginning of the descriptions of courses. This has been done (appendix C). It now has its own heading on the Web page devoted to the catalog—though it is now separated from the list of majors by a set of items related to the university. There is a list of goals for General Education. The copy is more “inspiring” than the old version, but more work is needed here. The entire course catalog might be considered uninspiring about learning. To view the catalog, go to: http://www.mtu.edu/catalog.pdf

The description of General Education is perhaps clearer in the most recent guide for first year orientation (Appendix C). Student team orientation leaders received instruction from the Director of General Education on General Education both this year and last.

Students participate in both the General Education Council and the University Assessment Council. The student leaders on both these councils are now working with Student Affairs to suggest improvements and additions to our co-curricular course list. The students will be involved in the spring 2003 with the efforts to think through ways to learn about the coherence of the four core courses, the assessment of the distribution courses, and ways to improve student understanding of assessment.

This academic year, the school newspaper printed discussion questions about the events of 9/11 from Perspectives instructors and students.

A university recruiter requested more information on General Education, and he attended the Orientation Team Leader Presentation. He thinks all the recruiters should hear the talk; this is not a high priority, but is in the works.

The opportunity afforded by this Progress Report to talk about General Education has helped spread information on “how is General Education doing?”

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Impact on Faculty

About ten percent of the Perspectives and World Cultures faculty have now written conference papers, published peer-reviewed articles, or written grants related to their UN teaching experience. The projects range from an idea inspired by watching a film, a refinement to an existing paper on visual arguments through the use of student evidence and discussion, a major book project on local hockey history “that I would never have begun if I hadn’t taught my Perspectives course,” a paper on Thucydides, and a research project to improve undergraduate teaching on nanotechnology. We expect these results, as well as other interdisciplinary synergies, will continue and grow.

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Barriers and Challenges to General Education

In our 1997 Self-Study, we took pains to use the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats approach. Our General Education has weaknesses and faces threats. This section considers them.

Distribution Lists and Courses

The 1997 NCA report expressed concern over the coherence of MTU’s General Education program. As noted earlier in this Progress Report, we believe we have addressed the concern. As students have begun their distribution courses, however, a serious operational problem has emerged. We would like specific comment from NCA on two questions. First, would we still have enough coherence if we collapsed our distribution lists from five to two? Second, would NCA advise against making Cultures and Institutions co-requisites rather than prerequisites to starting on the Distribution courses?

Background on the questions. The Distribution subcommittee of the General Education Council sought the counsel of academic advisers across campus about the rules related to the distribution lists. The results were clear, all advisors recommended the simplification of the lists. This also appears to be the preference of students, as reported by the undergraduate representative to the General Education Council. As a result of this input, the subcommittee made two recommendations to the General Education Council to consider for approval:

1) Combine the current distribution lists into two lists: Courses on the current lists, Language Thought and Values, Aesthetics and Creativity, and History and Cultures, should be combined into a single list with the title Art, Culture and History. The Science Technology and Society, and Economics, Politics and Social Institutions lists should be combined into a single list called Economics, Politics and Technology Studies. Students would be required to take 6 credits from each list and an additional three credits from the list of their choice.

2) Change the UN classes from prerequisites to distribution classes, to being co-requisites for distribution classes.

The General Education Council decided to ask for advice from NCA on these issues. It thus deferred both the acceptance of the Distribution Committee’s two recommendations and discussion of the three list proposal.

Funding

The main direct cost of the General Education program is Perspectives. Of the total budget of $300,000, about $255,000 goes to the SS&E accounts in departments for sections. At 61 sections of 3 credits each with about 1100 total students, that does not seem an excessive amount. Departments can even use the funds to support their other objectives. But, as state funding for higher education declines, the funds for Perspectives will look increasingly attractive for meeting cuts. Moreover, the inability of departments to replace faculty lost to attrition or retirement means more and more departments cannot spare faculty to teach the course. Yet, students express satisfaction with the course; it appears to do much to increase our climate of student engagement with learning; and, most faculty who teach the course very much enjoy the experience.

Impact on Service Departments

When NCA did its report, the Departments of Humanities and of Social Sciences within the College of Sciences of Arts all had relatively low numbers of undergraduate majors. This is no longer the case. Since 1997, Humanities has seen a 25% increase in Scientific Technical Communication (STC) majors and a 33% increase in Liberal Arts majors. Meanwhile it has lost 3 faculty lines; Social Sciences saw a 100% increase in students and no new faculty. The School of Business and Economics is experiencing similar difficulties. What this means is that the service departments, especially Social Sciences and Humanities, have to struggle to serve their growing numbers of majors, their graduate and research programs, and their service. So far, as is evidenced by faculty participation in the development of the courses and course materials, the departments have worked hard to make General Education a reality. But further pressures from the confluence of increased majors and flat or unfilled faculty lines may make such cooperation and participation ever more difficult.

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Summary

The university successfully designed an interdisciplinary General Education program with widespread faculty input and a direct vote of the entire faculty. The program is now in its third year of full-scale operation.

Assessment of the four core courses has taken place and refinements made in both the courses and the assessment instruments as a result of the assessment efforts. Now we are developing plans for the distribution, the math/science requirement, and for overall coherence.

MTU participated in a national survey (NSSE) associated with the goals of General Education. The survey results showed MTU to have done as well as and often better than the national average in most survey categories. MTU will participate in the 2003 survey.

There is an effective administrative structure for General Education.

Coordination between the General Education and University Assessment Councils is in the works. Flow of information has begun from General Education to academic departments via Assessment Council. Information from academic departments relevant to General Education is now being added to the assessment of General Education in its larger sense—the core, the distribution, and math/science.

Faculty and, increasingly, Graduate Teaching Instructors and Assistants share information on a regular basis on the UN courses. Students participate ex officio on both the General Education and University Assessment Councils. First year team orientation leaders get direct instruction on General Education. Plans to talk to all recruiters about General Education are underway.

The catalog has been changed.

In sum, General Education at MTU is in place and performing well.

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Appendix A

Purposes, Objectives, and Assessment of the Four Core Courses

Perspectives

Appendix A—Perspectives on Inquiry Indirect Assessment of Learning Outcomes Pilot Study

The questions below have been asked of each section of Perspectives in 2000, 2001, 2002 at course evaluation time. These are in addition to the usual student course evaluation questions all MTU students answer for each course.

1. As a result of taking this course, I will be more likely to participate in class discussion in my future university classes.

Year	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
2000	2.35%	8.51%	26.32%	37.96%	17.12%
2001	1.85%	6.54%	28.9%	39.91%	22.79%
2002	2.165%	8.29%	27.88%	40.63%	20.91%

2. As a result of taking this course, I think that I am better prepared to succeed in college.

Year	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
2000	2.84%	9.59%	32.68%	35.13%	11.84%
2001	3.38%	9.16%	32.70%	38.28%	15.81%
2002	3.13%	11.93%	36.39%	33.98%	14.46%

3. As a result of taking this course, I am more likely to consider an issue from different points of view.

Year

Strongly

Disagree

Neutral

Agree

Strongly

Agree

2000

2.35%

5.97%

23.48%

42.56%

17.42%

2001