GEAC Minutes for 4 May 2009

Present:  Dan Falabella, Joe Thomas, Kennon Rice, Irene Langran, Karen Campbell, Al Cacicedo

1.  Governance

Will this committee go away at the end of a particular date?  Advocating that current members of the committee be off the committee at the point that the Faculty votes on the proposal.  Thereafter a new body, whatever it's called, should be put in place.  The work of the current committee is essentially finished except for the rolling out of the proposal in the Fall.  Proposal is that there be a successor committee in place come September; current member would be available for presenting the proposal, but the new members would be responsible for taking the proposal forward, or revising it further, or starting the whole process over again.  GEAC's understanding is that Gen Ed should be overseen/governed by a committee, not by an individual.  That committee logically belongs as a subcommittee of EPC.

So we propose that there be a successor committee and that we present suggestions, not a finished system, about how to organize such a committee.  The current membership will stop functioning on Sept. 1st 2009.

2.  Connections

Discussion and editing of the document supplied by Joe Thomas proceeded apace.  Substantively, the idea that "respect" should be an outcome of the program came under discussion and led to an emendation of the language.

3.  Synthesis

Some editorial questions as to how to present the proposal were discussed, particularly whether or not to italicize the differences from IDS.  One sentence was deleted after the bullet points.  Synthesis course could also be connections courses, and students must choose about how to identify such a course.

4.  Foundations

Scheduling problem mentioned in regards to having the courses all done within the first two years, so the wording changed to "recommend fulfilling in first two years."  Change "mathematics" to "quantitative studies."  Suggestion that all foundations courses be identified as such, within which field, for clarity.  Should foundations courses count only for foundations credit and not for connections credit because foundations courses are introductions to learning within a discipline?  This final question needs to be further considered.