Motion 0001

The following document was supplied by Professor John Nicols to provide some background at the 14 February 2001 senate meeting. It deals with the proposed gen ed legislation.

Motion 0001-3: Replacement motion governing aspects of the General Education requirements.

1. Background

The accreditation report specifically noted the lack of coherence in our GenEd offerings; the Undergraduate Council has been addressing those concerns for two years now .
Since the conversion from the three to the four credit system there have been a number of minor and major reforms, but overall legislation has become disjointed.
The development of a new and more supple reporting system for tracking student progress (DARS) allows us a unique opportunity to address these concerns efficiently.

2. This legislation (and it has been reviewed now by all colleges, deans, and students) addresses then three concerns:

The delivery of general education courses is now much more broadly distributed over all colleges than it has been in the past, yet the procedures do not adequately reflect this change. We propose here to make the review process more inclusive and to do so without adding yet another committee. The Council is very concerned about the economy of effort.
There has been a geometrical increase in the number of approved group satisfying and multicultural courses. With this increase, however, departments have found it increasingly difficult to offer courses on the legislated schedule. We are not proposing any relief, but rather developing a structure to help find solutions.
The Council believes, and this belief has resonated widely throughout the university, that the student's intellectual experience is in all respects enhanced by taking group satisfying courses outside the major.

3. The legislation --note: even where we have not changed the specific language, we have restructured the legislation to make it more coherent, proceeding now from the general to the specific, outlining the procedures and defining "student progress" Moreover, we have reduced the wording of the legislation by about 50%:

The current legislation
Editorial changes
Replacement motion (effective for students entering fall of 2002)

4. Some notes:

The senators are well aware that the UCC has already taken steps to ensure that the Catalogue adequately reflects our pattern of course offerings. The Undergraduate Council supports those efforts.
For these reforms to work effectively it is essential that all colleges move to the electronic system for reviewing courses. The CAS has been using it for some two years now; Journalism is currently adopting it.