Continued Re-Envisioning of General Education Curriculum

September 17, 2018

What is the current status of General Education re-envisioning?

Revised white paper – what you should do

The white paper on General Education was released May 2018, with a request for Clemson faculty colleagues to provide input through August 2018.

The white paper has been revised with regard to Parts I and II, based upon faculty input and feedback. This revised version is a draft with a number of questions that need to be addressed and answered over the coming weeks.

Colleagues are asked to review and continue to give feedback on this document, preferably by October 20, 2018, through the blog comments feature below, a new Qualtrics survey, or through feedback passed to your Department Chair, Undergraduate Coordinator, and/or College Representative(s) to the General Education Committee.

Revised white paper – what you should know

Although creating a new, coherent, 21st century General Education curriculum will take a while, there are some areas where we can make structured progress and revise in stages.

The original white paper showed how the values of the faculty can be arranged into three spheres of knowledge and skill: disciplinary areas (“Comprehend”), communication areas (“Communicate”), and interdisciplinary areas (“Connect”).  

We know that any future General Education curriculum must have courses from arts/humanities, social science, natural sciences, and mathematics. (SACSCOC Core Requirement; see Note 1 at the end). We also know from faculty input that communication skills are very important to instill in our Clemson students. Therefore, the General Education Committee is focused on revising student learning outcomes and assessment rubrics for the disciplinary and communication areas first.

The improved learning outcomes and assessment rubrics that we create now will be usable with these required areas regardless of how the General Education curriculum structure is ultimately revised. A proposal going to UCC this fall means that new learning outcomes could be published in the Undergraduate Catalog for academic year 19-20. This will allow us to gather meaningful assessment data and conduct meaningful faculty development as we continue to work toward a new curriculum.

What about the other areas of current general education – CCA, STS, distributed competencies – and Part III of the white paper?

We will be discussing Part III from the white paper and continuing conversations on a more comprehensive general education revision in Spring 2019.

What else is going on?

We now have a General Education Committee with faculty representation from each College and University Libraries. The Committee has been working on establishing priorities for tasks to be accomplished this year.

The General Education Committee has already made one proposal affecting the General Education curriculum to the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee: the removal of the 2 credit hours of Academic and Professional Development, a remaining vestige of the e-Portfolio program. This was passed in the September 2018 UCC meeting.

The General Education Committee looks forward to working with faculty to identify and work through tasks to support our students, our academic values, and our ClemsonForward strategic plan.

Note 1: SACSCOC general education guidelines, in brief

• Student learning outcomes are identified for collegiate-level General Education in undergraduate degree programs. Institution assesses the extent to which it achieves these outcomes and provides evidence of seeking improvement.
• General Education is based upon a coherent rationale.
• General Education for baccalaureate programs constitutes a minimum of 30 semester hours.
• General Education ensures breadth of knowledge. Credit hours include at least one course from: humanities/fine arts, social/behavioral sciences, and natural science/math. These courses do not narrowly focus on those skills, techniques, and procedures specific to a particular occupation or profession.

(See Principles of Accreditation documents for complete information. Standards for General Education are in Sections 8 and 9. http://www.sacscoc.org/principles.asp.)