Frequently Asked Questions
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QUESTION: How can students manage such a large increase in GE units without slowing time to degree?
ANSWER: The current GE requirement is fulfilled with 6-10 courses (24-40 units), and all undergraduate colleges have an additional 8 unit English Composition requirement. The proposed GE requirement could be fulfilled with a minimum of 32 units of Topical Breadth outside the major plus 8 units of English composition (college requirement). Core Literacy units could come from courses in the student’s major as well as any Topical Breadth area. The actual increase in units (minimum of 8) isn’t as large as it seems at first glace. Numbers of appropriate courses should not be a problem. Almost all courses will be certified in a Topical Breadth area. While developing provisional lists of courses that could meet Core Literacy requirements, the GE Summer Workgroup saw many possibilities for incorporating opportunities for students to learn to communicate their ideas in written, oral and visual forms, both within and outside of majors. Finally, the change to using units as the measure for the new program makes it possible for students to use 1-2 unit courses like Freshman Seminars to fulfill their GE requirement.
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QUESTION: What about engineering majors? Most of them have heavy unit requirements and their students may not be able to take more GE courses.
ANSWER: The Task Force tried hard to make the revised GE program doable for all undergraduates at UC Davis. Several factors will help engineering majors with the additional 8 units needed under the revised plan. First, a 4-unit course already required for most engineering majors is taught outside the College of Engineering but is not currently certified as a GE Topical Breadth course. Under the revised plan, it will be a Social Sciences topical breadth course and contribute 4 of the 8 needed units. Second, many engineering courses include core literacy skills or have interdisciplinary content, for example in the social sciences, as is mandated by engineering accreditation boards. Including units from such courses should generate the remaining units needed to fulfill the proposed GE requirement.
To enable timely progress to graduation for students in the most unit-heavy engineering majors, the following provision was developed for proposed Senate Regulation 523 (Criteria for General Education Certification): "In extraordinary circumstances, for example, for majors subject to external accreditation, the General Education Committee may certify that the fulfillment of the major requirements meets specified parts of the General Education requirement. The major requirements must include courses that fulfill the objectives of the relevant parts of the General Education requirement."
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QUESTION: How will the Writing Experience requirement in the new GE Proposal affect faculty and TA workload? Will the Writing Experience requirement fall solely on the shoulders of faculty and TAs who are teaching specific courses? Won’t this produce an unequal sharing of workload?
ANSWER: Current estimates indicate that in many cases courses approved for “writing experience” (WE) under the existing GE program already require sufficient writing and guidance to students to meet the new requirement; these courses will therefore not require additional workload. In many other cases, courses that meet the current GE requirement in writing experience do not assign sufficient writing, nor provide sufficient guidance to students, to meet the new standards. In these cases, departments will need to decide if they wish to put forward these courses to meet the new requirement. If they do wish to put these courses forward, they will need to revise the courses, thus increasing workload to some extent. However, the options by which a course can qualify as meeting the new WE requirement are designed to be sufficiently varied and flexible to minimize the impact on workload.
Moreover, the number of seats needed to meet student demand for “writing experience” under the new plan is far fewer than the number of seats currently available to meet the existing WE standard. Departments may decide to shift resources to those courses best suited to meeting the new requirement, rather than attempt to put forward all courses currently listed as meeting the existing requirement.
Finally, with training, an instructor may be able to approach the grading of a course to emphasize writing, without unduly affecting workload. We strongly encourage departments to take advantage of the services offered by the University Writing Program to train faculty and TAs to implement writing assignments efficiently and productively, as well as integrally to course goals.
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QUESTION: What’s happened to social-cultural diversity, which is a stand-alone requirement in our current GE program? It’s not on the list in the new proposal.
ANSWER: Social-cultural diversity is now embedded in the components of Civic and Cultural Literacy. Courses certified in American Cultures, Governance, and History or in World Cultures will integrate into their curriculum a consideration of the many patterned differences that characterize human populations, particularly differences of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion or social class.
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QUESTION: I teach a 4 unit Arts & Humanities that should qualify for the Oral Literacy component, but the new plan says that 3 units are required for that core literacy. Does that mean that my course can’t be listed as an Oral Literacy course?
ANSWER: Your course can be listed if it meets the criteria in the course approval description. The Oral Literacy requirement is for a minimum of 3 units; more units are fine. Altogether, a student taking the course will earn 4 units of credit for Topical Breadth as well as the units necessary to fulfill Oral Literacy.
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QUESTION: Will upper division language courses requiring writing in that language be counted toward writing-experience units? Will oral presentations in language courses qualify toward oral literacy?
ANSWER: Yes, if the writing or oral presentations meet the criteria described in the relevant Course Approval Description. Oral presentations in a foreign language must involve effective oral communication of ideas and build upon critical thinking. (Memorized dialogs would not qualify.)
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QUESTION: Shouldn’t students be required to take more than 3 units for Scientific Literacy? Science seems to be underemphasized in this plan.
ANSWER: All students will take a minimum of 12 units of Science & Engineering as topical breadth, 3 units of which must be certified in Science Literacy. Actually, many of the courses taken by non-scientists (lower division “10”-type courses) are likely to be certified for Science Literacy, so those students will have additional exposure to this approach to knowledge.
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QUESTION: Certifying courses for the new program will be a monumental task. How can it be done efficiently and effectively?
ANSWER: A GE Implementation Task Force has been formed to facilitate this process and to help departments and teaching programs identify appropriate courses for GE certification. Assignment of courses to Topical Breadth areas should be straightforward: departments and teaching programs will be asked to submit lists of courses for review by the GE committee and then the Committee on Courses of Instruction. Certification that a course meets a Core Literacy does not have to involve extensive paperwork. We do know that College and Senate committees responsible for review and approval of courses will need to have extra members appointed for the period when existing courses need to be certified.
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QUESTION: I am a current UC Davis student. Will I be affected by the new GE requirements?
ANSWER: No. The new GE requirements will need to be met by all students entering or transferring into UC Davis in Fall 2011 and thereafter. The current GE requirements remain in effect for all students who entered or transferred to UC Davis before Fall 2011. Please see the 2008-10 University Catalog (http://registrar.ucdavis.edu/UCDWebCatalog/) for the current GE requirements.