SUNY Cortland General Education Committee

May 8, 2007 Minutes

Present: S. Davidenko, D. Miller, N. Aumann, D. West, J. Hendrick, M. Prus, L. Simmons, M. McGuire, M. Canfield, J. Hartsock

Merle reported that most of the essays to assess critical thinking were in and that the readers were all lined up.

The extra meeting for next week, May 15, was confirmed. �Mary will check for the availability of OM 127. On the agenda will be the PWR courses and the course proposal from COM.

Nancy emailed a list of courses that were designated to be deleted from GE 3.� She asked if the list was complete.� No additional courses were mentioned.� Mark brought up the question about what the GE committee�s role is in courses being deleted.� A motion was made, 2^nd and the carried unanimously to delete HIS 100, HIS 101, SPA 318, FRE 318, GRY 120 and SCI 330 from GE 3.

Nancy reported that Dean Caffarella had sent an appeal to the Provost regarding the GE committee�s decision at the last meeting to not approve EDU 303 for GE 8. �The committee noted that the GE form indicates that appeals are to be made to the committee.� Nancy said she would inform the Provost.

It was mentioned that it would be good to have all these policies in one place.� Mary then held up a GE Handbook (dated as an April 2006 draft).� No other committee member had a copy.� David indicated that he had an electronic version on his computer and would send it to Nancy to put on the Curriculum web page.

New GE course proposals:

1.�� Category GE 7 � Humanities

�� a.�� PHI 100 � There was discussion regarding student learning outcome on being able to �critically respond to works in the humanities�.� The committee felt comfortable that the information provided appeared to meet the objective.� One concern was raised regarding 100-level introduction courses in the GE program.� Overall the course appeared to meet learning objectives. Motion to approve was 2^nd and passed 7-0.� The department will be informed along with a note that �students may not take more than two courses in any one discipline to satisfy the requirements of the Cortland General Education Program� (from GE Restructuring Proposal, April 2006, p. 3).

�� b.�� PHI 271 � A concern was raised that the course title, Philosophy of Human Nature, sounded much broader than the narrow focus that appeared in the 2004 syllabus provided.� The motion to approve the course was withdrawn as the committee requests a more recent version of the syllabus with a broader coverage.� Mary will notify the department.

2.�� Category GE 5 � Western Civilization

�� a. �� PHI 201 � Reference was made to an email from D. Harms who expressed concerns of this course being a GE 5.� Concerns were raised about its limited historical perspective, which is key for GE 5 (particularly relating to student learning outcomes #1 and #2).� It was suggested that this course would be more suitable as GE 7.� The motion to approve the course was 2^nd but was not carried (vote: 0 (for) -7 (against)).

�� b.�� PHI 202 � Again, questions were raised as to its suitability for GE 5.� It appeared the page(s) of the syllabus were missing.� The discussion was tabled until more information was available.�

�� c.�� PHI 240 � As with PHI 201, the historical perspective of the content appears limited.� A motion was made to return the proposal to the department (supported 6-0).� The course description and syllabus needs to more clearly reflect the historical perspective to be considered as a GE 5, or consideration could be made to resubmit it as a GE 7 course.�

The meeting was adjourned at 11:52 am.�

The next meeting is May 15^th at 10:45

Respectfully submitted,

Joy Hendrick