Liberal Education Revision

1. Liberal Education Revision Information and Feedback

2. Topics • Pressures • Considerations • Charge • Progress & Thinking So Far • Feedback

3. Pressures • Costs • Reduce...reduce…reduce • Allocation model • Student tuition • Universities • Question value of degree from BSU

4. Pressures • Improving access • Providing technology-based delivery? • Admitting all students who want to attend, even those who are less prepared? (Conditional admits at BSU hover around 20%) • Increasing diversity of student body

5. Pressures • Increased scrutiny • From parents • Accrediting bodies • Legislatures

6. Pressures • Minnesota Transfer Curriculum • Liberal education program needs to be transfer compliant • Excludes disciplines deemed more vocational in their orientation (Exclusion is unevenly applied) • Problems • No inherent unity or integration to courses • Lacks cohesive educational philosophy • Fragmented/disconnected • Students do not get why these courses are important • Students lack sense of how connects to major • Faculty often have little desire to teach

7. Pressures • Employers pressures toward “workforce development” • Recent AAC&U survey of employers findings • Critical thinking, communication, problem-solving skills. These are more important than the major • Need more emphasis on essential learning outcomes so that are promotable beyond entry level

8. AAC&U: Essential Learning Outcomes • Essential learning outcomes: • Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world • Personal and social responsibility • Intellectual and practical skills including • Integrative and applied learning

9. Liberal Education “Best Practices” • Key programmatic features (AAC&U) • Orientation to intellectual expectations, curricular rationale, institutional learning resources • Critical thinking and writing found across the curriculum • Learn about another culture and diversity within own culture • Integrate ideas from across disciplines (e.g., themes) • Study some subjects (GenEd) at advanced levels • Opportunity to pull learning together • Coherent course of study; more than sum of parts

10. Charge • The BSU Faculty Senate charges the Liberal Education Committee with developing a distinctive, integrative Liberal Education Program based upon the principles of the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) LEAP (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) initiative and High Impact Practices, and making a formal recommendation to the BSU Faculty Senate by February 2014. • Understandings: • Monthly updates will be shared with the BSU Faculty Senate and broadly disseminated for faculty input. • The new program will meet the needs of students transferring into and out of Bemidji State University and will be compliant with the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum. • An assessment plan will be a part of the formal recommendation.

11. Proposed Mission • To provide a foundation that cultivates intentional learners empowered through intellectual and practical skills, informed by knowledge and prepared to meet the personal, civic, and professional challenges of a rapidly changing world. OR • To provide intentional learning environments that empower students with the knowledge, skills and habits necessary for continued personal enrichment and a life of individual, professional and civic engagement in an ever-changing world.