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Academic Affairs Planning Goal #3
 2004-2006

1. What is a visionary goal that your unit set? 

To revision and revise our current general education program utilizing what we know about learning communities, engaged learning, integrative themes, multi-disciplinary courses, team teaching, and the co-curricular.

Note that this goal became part of the 2004-2006 PLNU Strategic Goals. The Strategic Goal statement is: Goal 2: To review and revise the undergraduate student experience in General Education and related Co-Curricular programs.

2. What information and data did you use to set this goal? 

  • It had been more than ten years since the PLNU general education program was evaluated and it was due for a review and needs to be updated.  This review should include utilizing some of the best ideas from what we now know about learning communities, engaged learning, integrative themes, multi-disciplinary courses, team teaching, and incorporating the co-curricular into coursework.
  • The total number units required for the general education program and most academic majors, leaves students with very little room to take “elective” classes, this has been seen as undesirable by the faculty.  Depending on which options are selected GE is between 60 and 71 units, and undergraduate majors range between 28 and 77 non-GE units with a median of 47.  This leaves very little space for minors or electives in a 128-unit undergraduate degree.
  • Because students can take most of the courses in the general education program in any order, it has been impossible to make clear linkage between courses. Thus it has been difficult to develop complex thinking and communication skills in a focused, programmatic way. The same is true of some of the values and attitudes (i.e. openness to diversity) that PLNU hopes to build into its students.

3. What actions did you take to try to reach this goal?

See the WASC CPR Group Two: Educational Effectiveness Indicators for further details and supporting documents.

  • In the 2002-2004 academic years the General Education Committee extensively reviewed the GE offerings of various departments.
  • One of the six PLNU strategic goals for 2004-2006 focuses on general education, a goal manager was named and a team set up to work on the goal.  The action items established for this goal are:
    • Verify need for GE review (discussed in #2 above)
    • Discussion – What basic principles of purpose and administration should characterize the PLNU General Education program
    • Review and consider national GE trends
    • Determine Goals and Objectives for GE
    • Determine assessment measures
    • Analyze GE review process – esp. in relation to level of faculty involvement, determining impact on departments, faculty loads, and student enrollment patterns and transfers.
  • In addition, the WASC CPR Team Two: Educational Effectiveness Indicators focused a great deal on measuring general learning outcomes and thus the general education program.
  • Several broad faculty conversations (in faculty workshop, e-mail polls, and faculty meetings) were held around issues related to general education.
  • The GE Task Force also talked to students.

4. What progress did you make?

See the WASC CPR Group Two: Educational Effectiveness Indicators for further details and supporting documents.

  • Review and consider national GE trends
    • The GE Task Force read a collection of documents related to current philosophy and practice in General Education. These documents formed the basis for some of the philosophical conversations related to GE (see the reading list in Research Tools to the WASC CPR Group Two Report).
    • The GE Task Force also examined and analyzed a diverse collection of GE programs from a wide variety of schools.
  • Determine Goals and Objectives for GE
    • A list of key ideas to be considered for implementation in the GE program was developed by the GE Task Force as the result of their reading and research (described in the answer to question 6 below).  These principles are part of what is guiding the current discussion about related to proposing a modified GE program.
    • A list of first principles of GE was developed and adopted by the faculty in September of 2004 (see First Principles of General Education)
    • The WASC CPR Group Two Report made some specific recommendations related. 
    • The GE Task force is still working on a PLNU statement of GE philosophy and the associated goals.

  • Determine assessment measures
    • After a series of revisions, a final list of Educational Effectiveness Indicators (EEI’s) was created.  Once this was completed, a list of instruments for measuring these 13 EEI’s was developed.
    • The assessment measures consist of a collection of three General Education Exams and some information gathered from student surveying.
    • As of this date two of the three GE exams have been piloted and the third will be pilot tested in the spring of 2006.  Date from the first two exams can be found in the WASC CPR Group Two Report.
  • Analyze GE review process – esp. in relation to level of faculty involvement, determining impact on departments, faculty loads, and student enrollment patterns and transfers.
    • The GE Task Force is still working on the details of a proposed GE program and will do the needed analysis once the details are further along.
    • The GE Task Force is also designing a system for broader faculty involvement in the development of various portions of the GE curriculum. As discussion of the details of a revision continue, the GE Task Force will be inviting representatives of specific departments to Task Force meetings to participate in planning, will visit departments in order to speak to all department members and invite an in-depth critique of the emerging program, and will keep the faculty in general informed about progress through ongoing reports in faculty meetings.

5. What information and data did you use to evaluate your progress?

  • The WASC CPR Group Two Report demonstrates that the committee had done a significant amount of work related to developing a GE philosophy and a set of first principles for designing a GE program.
  • As is indicated by the exam results from the first two GE exams, the assessment process has begun. All available GE assessment data will soon be posted on the website as part of the PLNU University Data Tables.

Supporting Documents:

Undergraduate Catalog description of GE including the associated units
Strategic Planning Goal Two Report
WASC CPR Group Two Report