GENERAL EDUCATION REVIEW TEAM RECOMMENDATIONS (2000-2001)

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Recommendation 3

Recommendation 4

Recommendation 5

Recommendation 6A

Recommendation 6B

Recommendation 13

Recommendation 3:

Recommendation:

We recommend the General Education program at CSUS be divided into two parts: a 39-unit Foundations of GE (lower division) segment and a 9-unit Advanced GE (upper division) segment for a total of 48 units (SEE GRAPHIC ON NEXT PAGE), and that within the constraints of various executive and code requirements and assuming articulation on relevant issues, CSUS shall honor the 39 units offered by individual community colleges and impose no further "local" lower division requirements. [The Foundations GE program for "native" students would be similar] The upper division experience should follow an approach that while singular to CSUS provides a measure of common experience for students. Each of the present areas shall be renamed to reflect the outcomes with which they are associated (see Appendix item for suggested approaches). While the Team reached consensus that no upper division courses should be included in Lower Division Areas A-D, we were far less certain about excluding upper division courses from Area E and recommend that GERIG further consider this issue.

Discussion and Rationale:

Time and again we heard from all concerned that especially for the 70% or so of students who transfer from community colleges, the General Education Program at CSUS is “confusing,” “unnecessarily complex,” “has hidden requirements,” is “out of step with the rest of the world,” and so on. If this lament were only coming from students, it might be dismissed as the complaints of those whose own failings explain why they arrived at CSUS with incomplete or ill-conceived GE transfer packages. But throughout our inquiry we also heard these claims repeatedly from advisers and evaluators whose opinion carried particular weight with Team members. Part of the confusion, of course, stems from the additional campus-specific Graduation Requirements which we recommend be eliminated (Recommendation No 6 below) and part of the confusion can be traced to, for example, CSUS area designations that don’t correspond to those at community colleges. But there are other dimensions that we felt needed addressing as well. For instance, we recognize and insist on a difference between lower and upper division courses in the major, as reflected in our course numbering system and in each major’s requirements. If this is the case, then it follows that there ought to be completion or near completion of lower division work before upper division work is attempted.

Recommendation 4:

Recommendation:

"We recommend that the Advanced GE package shall consist of three upper division units in each of these three areas (broadly defined): Social Issues of the 21st Century; Arts, Humanities and Society; and Science, Technology and Society. Every effort should be made to encourage the program to explore how courses in the Advanced GE package could (a) incorporate service learning where appropriate; (b) encourage interdisciplinary or intradisciplinary approaches, specifically by linking courses; (c) address issues of race, ethnicity and gender whenever feasible; and (d) promote a global perspective."

Discussion and Rationale:

Given that 85.3 per cent of our graduates did not start at CSUS as freshmen, it follows that the only piece of the General Education program over which CSUS has complete control for all of its students is the upper division segment. Yet as things stand now there is no distinct dimension to the upper division experience required of CSUS students. Rather, a hypodermic assumption holds sway, in effect that shooting students with three units here and there serves the professed goals of a general education. Under the present program, which is a distributive model of sorts organized primarily around area requirements rather than a lower division set of foundation courses and a thematic upper division advanced set, upper division coursework is a hodgepodge, usually selected by students for reasons that have little to do with a unifying intellectual experience. In the words of one department chair, it is little more than a smorgasbord and in the words of another, a shopping mall. Under this approach, we are convinced that it is highly unlikely students will make connections between disparate ideas and fields. In the end, we are giving our students pieces of an intellectual puzzle without benefit of the picture on the box top so they may begin assembling it in useful fashion.

Recommendation 5:

Recommendation:

"We recommend a 5,000 word “writing intensive requirement” replace the existing Advanced Studies requirement and that this requirement be satisfied either through a certified course in the proposed 9-unit Advanced GE package or in the student’s major. In all writing exercises students are to be provided with instructor critique where the objective is to develop writing skills over the course of the semester. The GE policy committee will be responsible for certification of such courses. We also recommend that all other Upper Division General Education courses require significant writing assignments that include feedback to the student."

Discussion and rationale:

Repeatedly throughout our inquiry we heard concerns expressed about the ability of the typical CSUS graduate’s ability to write clearly. Majority opinion was that while strengthening general education’s upper division writing requirements would hardly guarantee a solution, it might still serve as a significant step in the right direction. After listening to a number of specialists in teaching composition, particularly from the CSUS English department, the Team concluded (a) an advanced writing requirement is most effectively fulfilled within the major; (b) such a course should include a multiple-draft approach that provides the opportunity for instructor editing and feedback; and (c) the course should be taken in sequence (i.e., after lower division writing coursework). 

In regard to the first condition, the Team became convinced that the name change of Advanced Studies to “Intensive Writing” is more in keeping with the original intent of such courses. As well, the Team came to believe that students most readily improve their writing skills when they are writing about subject matter they are studying in content courses, i.e., their major. 

Although it is entirely consistent with the Faculty Senate’s mandate that all departments must include a reading and writing plan at the time of their first program review subsequent to the Senate’s Fall 2000 mandate, we recognize that our recommended approach is not entirely unproblematic. Of course, disciplinary faculty may feel unqualified to address writing issues, per se, although present Advanced Studies courses, presumably, already do so. Therefore, it may be necessary to have the new University Reading and Writing Coordinator provide support and training for disciplinary faculty. GERIG could investigate how this might best be accomplished, perhaps by looking at what San Jose State has accomplished in this regard. 

Of course, it would also be possible under this approach for a student to take any upper division GE certified intensive writing course should a student’s major not offer one. 

Beyond our recommendation regarding an Intensive Writing course requirement, we are also recommending that all upper division GE courses have “significant” writing assignments, which we broadly defined as those including some sort of instructor feedback to the student. The GE course approval and review process ought to include consideration of such a requirement.

Recommendation 6A:

Recommendation:

We recommend the current second-semester writing requirement be incorporated in GE Area A3. The requirement can be met by English classes that incorporate a significant critical thinking component or critical thinking courses that incorporate a significant writing component

Discussion and rationale:

The Team came to be persuaded that any course intended to fulfill a writing requirement ought to be in General Education and ought to be perceived by students as within the context of a coherent, organic GE program rather than as merely another box to check, as many see it now. While there was disagreement on how best to incorporate the second semester composition requirement into the GE program, the Team ultimately reached the consensus that it did not require “stand alone” coursework (i.e., English 20) to accomplish. Rather, a second semester writing experience could be incorporated into courses designed to meet the critical thinking requirement. 

There are several reasons why we came to agree on this recommendation, but two stand out. First, when English 20 was adopted as a graduation requirement, it was estimated that three FTE faculty would be sufficient to accommodate student demand, given the university’s mistaken assumption at the time that the majority of community college students would have completed equivalent coursework before transferring to CSUS. Yet the number of FTE faculty projected to teach this course during 2001-002 is 8.4, and still students say they have difficulty getting into sections. The Team came to question whether this was the best use of increasingly scarce campus resources, particularly given that for whatever reasons, 41% take English 20 in their Junior Year (Fall 2001) and 22% take it in their senior year (Fall 2001) while some 38% of students (Spring 1999) took English 20 after taking the WPE. 

A second reason is that a number of community colleges have in fact already developed coursework that meets the U.C. second-semester writing requirement as well as the CSU critical thinking requirement. In our view, either critical thinking courses that include a significant writing component or second-semester English courses that include a critical thinking component could provide the kind of experience provided for under the current requirement. Composition and critical thinking are frequently taught in one course nationally, so redesign of English courses should not pose a significant problem if sufficient resources are made available for English faculty development in the area of critical thinking. The redesign of critical thinking courses to include a significant writing experience, if they do not already, might be more problematic, particularly in courses that address how critical thinking applies to a particular subject matter (e.g., Mass Media and Critical Thinking). That said, to be effective it would not be necessary for a critical thinking course to accommodate all of the objectives currently associated with English 20. As well, the soon-to-be established position of campus Reading and Writing Coordinator, presumably, could assist in course redesign and development of effective instructional techniques. 

Under the recommendations proposed here, by the time of graduation, a CSUS student will have taken English 1A, completed a lower division critical thinking course that included a writing component or a second-semester English course that included critical thinking, six units of upper division work that included significant writing assignments and three units of an upper division intensive writing course, in addition, of course, to having passed the WPE. 

We recognize that our recommendation is not unproblematic but we feel that solutions can be found to make the proposal work. First, there is the potential problem of sequence. Obviously, it would not make sense for “native” freshman to take English 1A and a critical thinking course simultaneously, in essence fulfilling their first and second semester writing requirements at the same time. We do not believe this will be a major problem, however, largely because few entering freshman take critical thinking in their first semester; typically they sign up for 1A and oral communication. And any problems of this sort could be eliminated by making English 1A a pre-requisite to critical thinking courses as it already is for English 20. The second matter, should our approach be adopted, would involve the need for a plan to monitor community college courses, both in terms of the expectations for combined composition-critical thinking coursework and the sequence issue.

Recommendation 6B:

Recommendation:

Option 1: The current Foreign Language Graduation Requirement shall be incorporated into lower division Area C of the GE program. GE students must satisfactorily complete a language course at the 2A level or above, and coursework should include a significant cultural component. [This option would add a minimum of 3 units to the GE total under our proposals]

-OR-

Option 2: The current foreign language Graduation Requirement shall be eliminated and incorporated instead as an elective into Foundations (lower division) Area C of the General Education Program. Coursework must be at the 2A level or above and include a significant cultural component. [This option adds no units to the GE total]

Discussion and rationale:

No issue taken up by the Team elicited more controversy than the question of how best to incorporate the current foreign language requirement into the GE Program. Proponents argued that this is no time to abandon a foreign language requirement given the exigencies of globalization and the demonstrated need to better understand other peoples and cultures. In their view, the U.S. lags far behind most industrial democracies in foreign language instruction and we do our students no service by following such a trend. Opponents of a requirement (as opposed to an elective) questioned (a) whether a “seat-time” language requirement actually produces proficiency, which the current requirement calls for; (b) whether skills courses actually produce cultural awareness; and (d) student resentment toward a requirement that many of them feel they will never use. One measure of the controversy is that Review Team members split evenly on the question of whether to require or make optional a foreign language in GE, which explains why two options are presented above. Whichever option eventually is adopted, we urge that foreign language coursework in GE offer a significant cultural component.

Recommendation 13:

"We recommend that a student must complete at least 33 units of lower division GE requirements, including Area A plus Area B4 mathematics, before enrolling in upper division GE coursework."