Overview
Why revise GE?
The current GE requirement was approved in 1996. Campus experience suggests that it has been failing to meet its objectives. (see “The Problem” in Report of the GE Task Force, 20 Jan 2007)
The GE Task Force asked these fundamental questions:
- What do we, the faculty, want to be able to say are the qualities of UC Davis graduates?
- What are the qualities of a well-educated person?
- How do those qualities prepare an undergraduate to live in a world increasingly complicated by scientific and technological change, by shifting demographics of ethnicity, and by the movement of people and ideas across national boundaries?
- How can we incorporate these qualities into a GE requirement that can be fulfilled by ALL undergraduates at UC Davis, including those whose majors require more than 180 units?
GE objectives within the mission of UC Davis as a public university:
- Educate students to become thoughtful, civically engaged participants of society.
- Equip students to consider matters requiring a critical understanding of science, history, social relations, and global forces, among other things.
- Communicate ideas effectively through written, spoken and visual means.
- Understand that ideas have consequences and that we all have the responsibility to consider those consequences.
- Develop a cosmopolitan rather than a parochial view of the world.
How do the revisions address these goals?
The current GE topical breadth requirement does not ensure training in essential skills. Many students see the existing GE requirement as a nuisance that they must endure and that distracts from their majors. The revised GE requirement integrates training in Core Literacies into topical breadth. The literacies are crucial both for success in one’s profession and also for a thoughtful engaged citizenship in the community, nation and world.
- Literacy with Words and Images
- Civic and Cultural Literacy
- Quantitative Literacy
- Scientific Literacy.
Clear writing requires clear thinking; writing strengthens a student’s ability to think and communicate effectively in the genres of a major as well as in other areas. The writing-experience requirement of the new proposal defines pedagogically effective writing both in terms of the context of the writing and the framework for effective learning. Feedback and the opportunity to improve writing over a course are essential and are specified in the new requirement. Departments who will offer courses to meet the new standard will have a variety of options for integrating the WE requirement within the current structures of their degree programs.
The current Social-Cultural Diversity component often cannot meet the goals of preparing students to think critically about issues arising in multicultural societies increasingly interconnected across national boundaries. In the new proposal, social and cultural diversity are integrated as essential elements of courses in American Cultures, Governance and History and in World Cultures, the two parts of Civic and Cultural Literacy.
Students can fulfill the current GE topical breadth requirement without taking courses that specifically teach quantitative reasoning and scientific literacy. A course in each literacy is required in the new program since both are essential to understand and evaluate information and new knowledge at the heart of major public policy debates and decision-making.
The current course-based GE requirement excludes 1-2 unit courses such as Freshman Seminars although they are ideal settings for intellectual discourse and developing written and oral literacy skills. Conversion to a unit-based requirement to incorporate such courses makes a general education a real possibility for students whose majors have heavy unit loads, for example, because of external accreditation criteria.
The proposal to allow P/NP grading for GE courses is designed to encourage students to explore more widely outside of their known academic strengths and to acquire a truly general education without undue concern about the impact on GPA.
The revised GE requirement also responds to the criticisms of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) review team, which noted in its 2003 report that the current UC Davis GE requirement falls far short of the minimum 67.5 quarter units it recommends to balance breadth and depth in a university undergraduate education. UC Davis must respond to WASC by March 2008. see: Commission Reaffirmation at http://wasc.ucdavis.edu.