Eastern Michigan University’s General Education Program is the core of an undergraduate education, so reviewing its requirements only makes sense.
The GE Program is a set of requirements that each students at Eastern Michigan University must meet, regardless of their major or minor. This program is not to be confused with a student ’ s major itself.
Eastern’s General Education Program is meant to provide students with a complete learning experience that will help prepare them for their field of study. This program also helps students think critically and helps them effectively communicate.
The Review Committee that is committed to strengthening EMU’s GE program hope it will further the progress of intellectual curiosity as well as a love of learning.
There are three current General Education Requirements. One is effective communication, which includes written communication and speech communication. Another is quantitative reasoning, which is one course based on a student’s math ACT sub score. The last requirement is knowledge of the disciplines, which is eight courses equally divided into arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.
According to the original documents that approved the General Education Program, a council of faculty senate representatives and staff members that are experts in assessment and program review are evaluating the program after five years of it being in place.
This council is known as the General Education Review Committee. This committee began its work by comparing the GE program at Eastern with other schools’ programs last fall. They frequently refer to data from the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and they will also survey faculty and students this fall on what they think about the GE program, and what could be improved.
GE Review Committee member and assistant professor John Koolage says, “We want people to feel that the program serves the best interests of EMU and our students. It's a great opportunity to look at what's working well and resolve any existing program problems. We have a lot of great thinkers on the committee who are very interested in what the campus community says about the program and how we can help make it better.”
The Review Committee is mainly focusing on improvements, enhancements and efforts towards development. Any faculty suggestions are welcome, as well. They are also getting employer feedback on the correlation between the content of the program and student outcomes. Furthermore, the committee is looking at how well the program supports EMU’s partnerships with other higher education institutions, although the university is not considering any extensive General Education alterations.
As program director Chris Foreman says regarding the reviewing of the program, “Any intellectual apparatus needs ongoing review. This isn't about reconstructing the program. Instead, we're looking at what we've learned over the past seven years about what's working, what's not working and how we can make it even better.”
The final report from the General Education Review Committee will be ready by no later than January 30, 2015.
