Faculty agree to impose guidelines on further studies classes

By Amy Geiszler-Jones

Departments wanting to add further studies courses to the general education curriculum will now have to follow guidelines, based on action by the general faculty at a March 30 meeting.

Under the new guidelines, departments will need to specify the introductory course(s) that a further studies class follows and will need to offer any designated further studies course at least once every three years. Departments will need to indicate in the schedule of courses which semester those classes will be offered so that students and advisers can do a better job of planning when to take general education classes.

The faculty also voted to give the general education committee the authority to use those guidelines to approve courses.

The previous policy had allowed departments to list any course as a further studies course by simply sending a memo to the general education coordinator.

“I got a memo from one department listing 10 new courses, and all I could reply was ‘thank you,’” coordinator Russ Widener told the 30 or so faculty at the meeting.

That policy led to a proliferation of further studies courses being listed, many of which have not been offered in years. A number of them also did not correspond with any introductory course or had prerequisites which were not general education courses. A report from the North Central Accreditation group, a general education faculty retreat and student evaluations had pointed to this weakness in the further studies component of the general education curriculum.

Currently of the 366 general education courses, 273 are further studies courses — 20 more than were listed in fall 1998, according to Widener. It’s expected the list will shrink when departments realize some classes haven’t been taught for some time, he said.