Academic Senate
Santa Barbara Division

General Education Workgroup
Minutes of the Meeting of September 19, 2003

Members Present: J. Heinen (GSA Rep.), M. Lopez (AS President), H. Marcuse (Co-Chair, GE Workgroup; Chair, Committee on Undergraduate Academic Programs and Policy), B. Marick (AS Rep.), C. Michel (Former GE Workgroup Co-Chair), D. Montello (L&S Executive Committee Rep.), A. Wyner (Dean, Undergraduate Studies, L&S)

Others Present: D. Blake (Analyst, Undergraduate Council), C. Chapman (Director, Academic Senate), D. Segura (Chair, Undergraduate Council)

Although several workgroup members were unable to attend, it was decided that as many as were available would meet to assess our current progress and plan future steps toward completion of a proposal. Following introductions, a quick recap of last year's activities was presented. Various data that were collected last year have yet to be thoroughly analyzed.

It was announced that the L&S Executive Committee has submitted a response to the memo regarding the GE criteria that was distributed at the end of last spring quarter. The memo indicates that the College now supports implementation of the criteria as a first step toward GE reform, rather than delaying this process, as was originally suggested.

Undergraduate Council Chair Segura has drafted a memo to departments describing the new GE criteria. The memo will be accompanied by a spreadsheet or list of the respective department's currently listed GE courses, indicating any that are slated to be retired from the GE Program based on the new criteria. Departments will be given a specific amount of time to bring these courses into compliance with the criteria to avoid having them removed from the GE list. It is anticipated that the language departments, in particular, may need to negotiate howmodify their listings slightly so that some of their courses can be accommodated.

The workgroup will renew its efforts to communicate with departments about the various proposal elements we've been discussing. Ms. Segura recently took advantage of the opportunity to discuss the possibility of an EGQ requirement at the Women's Studies retreat.

There was discussion of the timing of the implementation of the new criteria, the results of which will not be in print until next year's GE booklet is published. The deadline for submitting revisions is some time in February. It was agreed that we will therefore need to ask departments to respond to the criteria memo by the end of Fall quarter. It was suggested that departments should be asked to come to conclusions about their courses by the end of November. Al Wyner clarified how the GE booklet serves as a contract between students and the University.

GE Workgroup Chair Marcuse reviewed the divisions of authority and labor between the various offices and departments and described the process of consultation that will need to take place prior to legislation of a new GE Program.

The group discussed once again who should be voting on a GE Program that is specifically for L&S, which lead to questions of how other colleges? GE programs are legislated. It is suspected that revisions to non-L&S GE programs may not have undergone as much scrutiny by the Senate as the L&S GE Program is being subjected to.

It was suggested that in order to solicit feedback from only L&S Faculty prior to proposing their GE Program to the Faculty Legislature, the Undergraduate Council could submit a proposal to L&S Executive Committee with a request that an advisory vote be conducted among its faculty. The results collected could then be used to make revisions to a proposal that would eventually be submitted to the Faculty Legislature. Senate Director Chapman will discuss this possibility with Senate Chair Yuen.

Using a diagram indicating the differences between the current program and the one that's being proposed, the group discussed where the perceived pressure spots are and how they will influence the potential passage of the workgroup?s proposal. Many of the anticipated problems revolve around resource issues. It was argued that our decisions should be based on intellectual factors rather than resources and other political issues.

Consideration was given once again to whether our revisions should be voted on as a single package or broken down into individual proposals on each of the key elements. The rest of the meeting was spent trying to design a ballot that might be used by L&S and subsequently revised for presentation to the Faculty Legislature. Pro and con statements need to be prepared for each issue and further analysis of our data is needed to determine whetherif enough courses are available to fulfill the demand that would result from what is being proposed.

The workgroup will meet again on Friday, September 26.

Attest: Harold Marcuse