Faculty Approves GEC
With an overwhelming majority of professors who voted approving a new General Education Curriculum (GEC) in a faculty association vote last month, departments are beginning to get to work redesigning courses to fit the new requirements.
With the new curriculum up for approval by the Board of Trustees in the near future, classes must be selected and a working schedule set. Departments are already packing courses with more material to fit with the new model’s change from three units per course to four.
“We’re obviously interested in more depth and trying to create more of a learning community,” said Dayle Smith, business professor and co-chair of the university’s GEC Committee.
Faculty committees are currently determining the educational goals or “learning outcomes” and criteria for new GEC courses. This facet of the model will keep faculty interested in teaching the courses and ensure their currency, said Jennifer Turpin, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and co-chair of the GEC Committee.
“This was one of our main goals, to create a curriculum that would be by nature dynamic rather than outdated in a few years,” Turpin said.
The new GEC, which must be approved by USF President Stephen A. Privett, S.J. before it is submitted to the Board of Trustees, was passed with 149 votes, or 70 percent of those voting, in favor. Fifty-two members, or 25 percent, voted against the initiative and 10 members abstained.
“This GEC is more flexible and smaller, which responds to all of the students and most of the faculty,” Smith said.
The new requirement, based on a “general distribution model” used by a number of schools nationally, allows students to fulfill their general education requirements from courses already offered by departments as part of their major curriculum. Currently, students must take some courses specifically designed for the GEC. The new model would also require students to take fewer units, from 51 GEC units or 17 classes, to 44 units or 11 classes.
The vote was the faculty’s final say over the new GEC which took three years of university-wide discussion for the committee to finalize. The proposal, with approval from Provost Jim Wiser, could be submitted to Fr. Privett as early as this spring.
“There are many features of the proposal that are very strong,” Wiser said. “The next step, and an important one, is to develop the learning outcomes for the specific areas within the [GEC] core.”
Faculty who voted represented the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Business and Management, and the School of Nursing, because those schools have students participating in the GEC.
“Our current GEC is too large. It limits the ability of students to minor or take a number of electives or do a certificate program,” said Rhonda Parker, chair of communication studies and a student adviser in the department. “This frees them to be able to choose courses within the GEC.”
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