UNLV EVP & Provost | General Education Task Force

Executive Summary

The General Education Task Force (GETF) recommends the approval of the 2010 General Education Reform Proposal and submits this document as an addendum with clarifications and further recommendations. The GETF was charged by the President and the Executive Vice President and Provost in early December 2010 with the initial task of vetting the 2010 General Education Reform Proposal. The purpose of this vetting was to collect feedback from across campus and facilitate a final version of the proposal to be submitted through the Faculty Senate review process. Feedback on the proposal was taken through a series of 39 campus meetings as well as through an electronic survey, and this feedback informed the GETF’s seven clarifications and/or recommendations made in this addendum to the original proposal.

Support of the University Undergraduate Learning Outcomes (UULOs) and the vertical model of General Education that has a beginning, middle, and end and includes a First Year Experience (FYE), Second Year Experience (SYE), Milestone, and Culminating Experience as outlined in the original proposal.
Additional detail on the FYE course, including recommended delivery models.
Additional detail on the SYE course, including recommended delivery models. This recommendation includes moving the Constitutions requirement back to the General Education core and placing the SYE in the distribution.
Support of the proposed culminating experience with additional details regarding implementation.
Creation and clarification of structures for successful implementation.
Additional detail on General Education assessment.
Additional detail on the student pathway through the revised General Education curriculum.

Charge to the General Education Task Force

The President and the EVP&P are charging the General Education Task Force to bring culmination to the process of redefining general education at UNLV.

This addendum also includes issues for further exploration, an updated implementation timeline, and a resource model for implementing the revised General Education curriculum, including resources for the FYE, SYE, faculty development, assessment, and the appointment of an FYE/SYE course coordinator. Overall, the GETF recommends that the Faculty Senate accept the UULOs as written in original proposal and accept the vertical model with revised curriculum as clarified in this addendum.

Background

The last reform of General Education started in 2003 with implementation of recommendations of the General Education Task Force, to develop a slimmed down, interim Core and create an advisory committee that would review and recommend further changes to UNLV’s General Education curriculum and courses. The Advisory Committee developed proposed broad University Undergraduate Learning Outcomes (UULO’s) after completion of a campus-wide, day-long general education retreat held in September 2007 and completion of the Focus 50-100 planning process in Spring 2008. The proposed outcomes were reviewed at two campus events in Fall 2008. In Fall 2010, the Advisory Committee completed a proposal that recommends changes to General Education curriculum, co-curriculum and courses, and improvements in faculty and student support to attain the UULO’s and released a draft proposal to the campus in November 2010.

Charge

The General Education Task Force includes faculty, Faculty Senate leaders, and administrators, charged to work together to shepherd the 2010 General Education Reform Proposal, completed by the General Education Advisory Committee, through large scale campus dialog, with the ultimate goal of creating a sustainable structure for a revised General Education paradigm at UNLV. Specifically, the General Education Task Force will:

Put initial effort on the large-scale vetting of the 2010 General Education Reform Proposal and create structures to facilitate Faculty Senate approval of a reform proposal. This will include:
- developing and implementing strategies for sharing the proposal produced by the General Education Advisory Committee with a wide range of stakeholder groups, including faculty, students, co-curricular education units, and community stakeholder groups;
- obtaining stakeholder feedback, and based on that feedback, make recommendations for changes to the proposal;
- ensuring alignment with UNLV’s updated Focus 50-100 Strategic Plan objectives for education; and,
- facilitating the final version to be submitted through UNLV’s Faculty Senate review processes.
Recommend sustainable structures for successful implementation of the proposal. This will include:
- recommending assessment strategies for pilot projects and gathering feedback from their experiences to inform infrastructure needs;
- supporting faculty who propose further pilot projects for new courses in the curriculum;
- coordinating needs for faculty support and development to the Consortium on Faculty Professional Opportunities;
- considering ways to enrich, brand, and market the UNLV undergraduate education experience by linking with UNLV’s institutes and leveraging the Brookings and Lincy partnerships;
- soliciting input from co-curricular academic units to determine implications for implementation and infrastructure;
- be a resource to academic units in their role of revising current courses or proposing new ones that will meet the guidelines outlined in the general education proposal and assist in shepherding these curricular proposals through the established processes of the Faculty Senate General Education and Curriculum Committees;
- drafting an implementation timeline;
- recommending administrative structures and processes for long term evolution of the reforms in light of new data, needs, and national trends; and
- making recommendations to the President and to the EVP&P for resource needs and/or options for reallocation of existing resources.

Methods

The Task Force will be inclusive in its deliberations but will ultimately be responsible for ensuring that General Education reform is approved and can be successfully implemented. The Task Force will work with and between existing UNLV structures, including: the General Education Advisory Committee, the Faculty Senate General Education Committee, the Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee, the Consortium on Faculty Professional Opportunities, and the academic colleges and departments.

Draft Proposal Review Timeline

Any necessary approvals from Faculty Senate by April 2011.

Recommendations for resource allocation to President and EVP&P by May 2011.

Task Force Members

Patty Iannuzzi, Dean of Libraries, Chair of the Task Force

Bea Babbitt, Director of Academic Assessment

Elaine Bunker, Department of English (Faculty Senate Executive Committee)

David James, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Programs

Jeff Koep, Dean of the College of Fine Arts

Paula McMillen, Libraries (Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee)

Michael Pravica, Department of Physics and Astronomy (Faculty Senate Admissions Committee)

David Rapaport, CSUN representative

Carl Reiber, EVP&P Academic Affairs Fellow

Al Smith, Assistant Dean of the College of Business

Joseph Valenzano III, Department of Communication Studies (Faculty Senate General Education Committee)

David Wrobel, Chair, History Department

Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost

General Education Task Force