GenEd Committee

The General Education Committee and Campus Charge

The following was approved by the Bloomington Faculty Council and set forth in BFC circular B5-2007.

1. The Bloomington Faculty Council will establish a General Education Committee to facilitate the implementation and ongoing assessment of the General Education program.
2. The General Education Committee will have a voting membership consisting of the Associate Dean/Director for Undergraduate Education of each undergraduate School and the College together with other tenured/tenure-track faculty selected so that the voting membership as a whole has
   1. proportional representation based on the number of tenured/tenure-track faculty in the Bloomington Schools that offer baccalaureate degrees, and
   2. a majority consisting of tenured/tenure-track faculty who do not hold school-level administrative appointments,
   and which committee has two co-chairs, one of whom is appointed by the Provost and the other of whom is appointed by the Bloomington Faculty Council Nominations Committee. Each school will recommend its members to the Provost. The Provost will formally appoint the committee membership. To conduct its work, the General Education Committee may add ex-officio, including student, non-voting members, as needed.
3. In order for any proposal to be approved by the committee, whether concerning course recommendations or broader matters, the proposal must receive the support both (i) of a majority of the voting members and (ii) of at least some voting members from at least four of the College and Schools. Only a majority vote of the committee is necessary to disapprove any such proposal.
4. The General Education Committee is charged with:
   1. final preparation of the General Education proposal to be submitted to the Bloomington Faculty Council during the 2006–2007 academic year, including:
      1. Final definitions of curricular components including learning objectives for each component,
      2. Approved course lists (including, but not limited to: evaluation of historical enrollment, grading, and instruction data, sample syllabi, frequency of course offering, etc.),
      3. Unit impact evaluations (to be prepared by each school/college).
   2. reviewing proposals for general education courses in an ongoing capacity.
   3. developing assessment metrics for ongoing evaluation of the Common Ground and the Shared Goals.
   4. conducting a baseline assessment of the campus's current experiences with the Common Ground and Shared Goals during the period 2007–2011.
   5. reviewing unit reports on the implementation, ongoing experience, and effectiveness of the General Education Program within each degree program (Note: An initial collection of each report should be presented to the BFC by December 2008).
   6. monitoring budgetary implications, with the Vice Provost for Budgetary Administration and Planning, of the implementation and ongoing experiences with the General Education Program.
   7. delivering annual updates (in October for the previous year) and five-year reports to the BFC on the status of the General Education Program.
5. The President, the Provost, and the College and School Deans of Indiana University Bloomington shall take steps to insure that the budgetary adjustments necessary to implement this General Education Program do not adversely impact the research mission of any unit and shall undertake to diminish the budgetary incentives for, and prevent the occurrence of, academic encroachment between academic units. The President and Provost will make the necessary resources available to support the work of the General Education Committee and the implementation of the General Education Program.