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Meeting Minutes

October 25, 2005

Announcements:

The Hubbard center has contributed $250 for President of AAC&U, Dr. Carol Geary Schneider’s lecture to be given at Rosen Hall in February.

The small group discussions in the Hubbard Center (Conversations about General Education) will begin next week. The first of these will be moderated by Task Force member, Jim Barnes, on November 3. The second is with Task Force member, Alexandra Hellenbrand, on November 13. A suggestion was made that people should be encouraged to read Strong Foundations on the Web as a beginning for the discussion.

There was an announcement that the first open forum sponsored by the Task Force will be held Friday, October 28, from 3-5pm in the Linville Falls room of the Student Union (called “The Future of General Education at ASU”) Faculty, staff and students are invited to attend.

It was announced that a small group is working on a preliminary report summarizing the focus group research. This should be posted on the website on Friday.

Subcommittee Reports:

A. Employers and Alumni Subcommittee
The subcommittee met last week. Sharon Jenson is arranging for a group of employers to interview. Dan Friedman suggested that doing a random sample email survey may work best for alumni.

B. Community Colleges/High Schools Subcommittee
It was announced that we are communicating with Wilkes Community College and the Watauga campus of Caldwell Community College about what ideas might be beneficial in possibly restructuring General Education.

Presentation: Academic Advising

The Academic Advising presentation was made by Martha Stephenson, Denise Goetz, Lynne Waugh, Debbie Brown and Sandy Wilson.

Academic advisors are generalists and know a lot about curriculum. We work with freshmen in our office in Dougherty Hall and in the residence halls. We have full and part-time advisors. Some are part-time teachers and advisors. We do residence hall advising and work with Watauga College, international degree seeking students, etc.

Early contact is key for a student’s academic success.

We follow the developmental model (teaching and empowering students) and the intrusive developmental model, which is for students who need a more hands on approach, such as LAP. We receive information from students to build a preliminary fall schedule. We do things such as transcript evaluation and interpretation, to help them understand the process. We encourage all freshmen to meet with us in the first month/ month and a half. An academic advisor could also advise instructors in 7 anchor courses in 7 learning communities. We go into anchor courses 2-3 times per semester to help students assess how they’re doing.

We try to identify problems before the student gets into trouble. There is continual monitoring of students, especially those with less than a 2.0 who must see us. We work with special populations, such as athletes, student support services, the Summer Bridge Program. The period right before registration is the most intense for us.

Intervention does help to keep students who are drop-out prone. We see that those scoring high on the Drop-out Scale tend to leave. But, those that take advantage of interventions stay in much larger numbers. In the College of Arts and Sciences, there are 3,500 students, 200 of which are on academic probation.

We do liaison work with academic departments, research grant writing, and professional development.

Our transfer students get lost in the shuffle; we don’t have a good enough picture of preparedness for them.

A lot of students talk about how they wish they had had more time for foreign language exploration. There are not many ways for students to explore things in our current core curriculum. We want students to be able to explore and have flexibility. But right now, there are many majors (e.g. in FAA and Education) that have no choice in courses in the core.

Could major exploration happen in a structured way after freshman orientation in summer? There is no institutional method right now. Some of this is done in Freshman Seminar.

Jeni Wyatt (CAS): We are always trying to educate parents about the value of a liberal arts education, but many parents are so goal oriented.

We are a liberal arts school and we try to articulate the goals of general education to students and parents. We want students to have a broad contextual understanding of the world. But in regard to the core curriculum, we constantly hear “I just want to get it behind me.” It’s really not necessary to connect their major to their first job, but Mom and Dad often don’t understand. For example, part of the Core Curriculum must give students the chance to be able to see the effects of science and technology on life. What do we want students to really know from the sciences?

Question: why are majors allowed to intrude on the core curriculum?

We allow double-dipping and this allows more major-driven core curriculum. How are you ever going to find out about other possible majors if you are taking requirements for one that is so prescriptive? The relationship between the major and the core will be critical for our decision-making on models.

The current core curriculum is department-driven. The core must be approved by AP&P, made up of departmental representatives. There is no interim board looking out for the students’ best interests with regard to the core.

Articulation is a problem. There are big differences in the way we treat native students versus transfers. Acceptance of coursework from other schools and the number of requests for substitution in the core were discussed.

We need an appropriate mix of class sizes. We are moving toward large lecture courses. It would be wonderful if there were more interactive seminar courses. Some professors are great in seminars and don’t have the opportunity with freshmen.

Question: Should the hours in the core be reduced?

It would be nice to include Freshman Seminar in the core since so many students currently take it.

A lot of students really want an international study abroad experience. It would also benefit many others. It would be nice if we could get more study abroad courses approved. How to include them in the core? Could there be more lower-class international study abroad experiences rather than all upper-class? Is it more important for our students to have experiences abroad or to have them take 3 international/global studies classes? Can we substitute international study courses for core courses?

Foreign language: most students come having had Spanish in high school. But many students want to change to another language when here. “Can I take Chinese?”

High school students are often career-tracked in the ninth grade. Watauga High Students in 9th grade are asked to choose their career path which determines their future coursework. This is resource-driven strategy so schools can plan courses years in advance.

We’re working with students who want to do Elementary Ed and Study Abroad. We’re talking about various kinds of immersion. International Studies doesn’t have to be where they don’t speak English; the political environment will still be very different. There’s also the possibility of building programs with freelance academics that teach in English in non-English-speaking countries.

Only a small number of students continue with foreign language after high school. A lot can’t get the course their freshman year, so they just forget about it.

We recommend that the core courses be taken across the student’s career up through their senior year.

AP credit is increasing dramatically. It affected 794 freshmen in 2005. Students can get credit by exam. More are bringing in AP credit for science. Environmental Science is popular (no lab credit so it becomes an elective for our students). AP credit in the social sciences is common, including US History, Social Science, World Civ I and II, General Psychology, Political Science, and American Government.

Out of 119 Watauga College students, 30 bring in 9 AP hours or more. Some have 20-30 hours. Watauga College students must take an interdisciplinary core so they end up repeating many requirements. Their AP courses then count as electives.

AP scores are not ready until July or August so we often don’t know before advising in-coming freshmen. AP Math is another area that is increasing. A problem is that AP credit from high school doesn’t guarantee that they have achieved the goals of liberal arts education. Competencies should be situated across and within the curriculum. You don’t need to be sitting in freshman comp class if you’re ready for other stuff.

There is a need for special skills in the core: personal finances, communication skills, computer skills, etc.

We would push for a more vertical core, more interdisciplinary courses, courses on diversity.

We should have at least 5 courses in the core: one freshman year, and at least one in senior year. I would like to see the university change the way the world is changing.

When the core curriculum hasn’t changed in 21 years, this should be cause for concern.

Biggest student complaint: the core is not challenging, not interesting and not relevant.  It’s just a continuation of high school. Another complaint: the designators can become a problem if the student makes changes late in their career.