Faculty Congress Forum on General Education

April 13, 2015

Approximately 25 people attended that Faculty Forum to gather feedback about the UHH General Education (GE) Program. In a WASC visit several years ago, it was recommended that UHH develop a comprehensive general education program because the program that existed at the time lacked rigor. A comprehensive program was established and it has served the university well. However, with any system, it is important to evaluate it from time-to-time and recommend improvements. During the past year, some complaints (from faculty and administrators) have surfaced and the forum was intended to gather input about the strengths and weaknesses of our current GE program. Following are the issues that were identified.

  1. The GE issue is complex and there was general consensus that we need to be aware that there are at least two different major issues.
  2. First, UHH is getting some pressure to align its GE program with the rest of the system. It appears that the two programs are not that different. One attendee (Jean Ippolito) provided a summary of how close the two programs are. She believes that with a slight reorganization, we would be aligned.
  3. Second,there are a large number of waivers that are used to work around the existing system. There was discussion about whether the waiver problem is a result of GE or whether the waivers are due to Program-related issues. Data will be gathered (KainoaAriola) to provide a summary of the breakdown of waivers into two categories: GE related waivers and non-GE academic program waivers. The WASC report seemed to confuse these two types of waivers and we need to make sure that the problem is in fact related to GE.
  1. It was recognized that we do treat 4-year students differently than 2-year transfer students in our GE program. UHH accepts almost any lower division course as a GE course while our 4-year students are required to take GE courses from a specified list.
  2. To deal with a limited number of certified GE courses, some of our 4-year students are taking a course required in their major at a UH community college so that it will satisfy a major requirement and a GE requirement at the same time, eliminating the need to take an additional course. We cannot verify that the course taken at the community college has the same stringent requirements as our GE courses (i.e., 5 pages of writing).
  3. On the other hand, this may be more an issue of departments needing to certify additional GE courses.
  1. There was a general belief that a myth is being circulated that Community College advisors are not recommending that students transfer to UH-Hilo because of our cumbersome GE program.
  2. Since UHH accepts almost any lower-division course as a GE course, this should not be a problem.
  3. If their concern is related to our GE not matching UH-Manoa’s (and the Community Colleges other than HCC), there seems to be a few tweaks that could be made to our GE program that would alignUHH more closely with the rest of the system.
  1. Courses that have been certified for GE may not have been GE in the past or may lose GE certification in the future. It is hard to know when the course was offered as GE. The system is not seamless for the students and there is confusion at times.
  2. It was recognized that the GE committee has made progress this year in streamlining the recertification process.
  3. It was suggested that a course be allowed to be certified GE retroactively in the situation where the course met the required rigor in the past even though it was not certified GE.
  4. There was a suggestion that the GE committee handle exceptions that come up. So, if the course was taught with the rigor of a GE course in a semester when it was not certified GE, it would be helpful for the student to be able to petition for an exception. It was also recognized that this would represent a lot of work for the GE committee and maybe it was better to provide a faculty member with a 1 credit course overload to handle all exceptions during the year.
  1. Other general concerns raised:
  2. Since GE is designed to make students well-rounded, is it necessary for students to take the GE courses in their discipline areas. For example, should a student in the sciences be required to complete the GE-Natural Science course requirements when they will be presumably be well-versed in natural sciences when they complete their major.
  3. Should UHH require a non-English/second language requirement as part of GE?
  4. There is an issue related to double-dipping. For integrative requirements, students can double dip but for core and area requirements they cannot. This is confusing for students and faculty. It is also possible to quadruple dip if a student takes a course that is certified for HPP, GCC, and WI as well as an integrative requirement. Students, who are not aware of these issues, become upset when they find out they could have taken fewer courses and possibly graduated earlier.
  5. Students have commented that they wish GE was more utilitarian and pulled together more courses from multidisciplinary perspectives so they are better prepared for the future. These students feel that GE has to be more value-added. Suggestions of course areas include Business Planning and Innovation Hubs, Understanding Human Dimensions and Sustainability, Policies to Address Local and Global Challenges.
  1. Next Steps
  2. Gather data to evaluate course waivers. Is this a problem related to GE or is it largely a problem related to academic program requirements.
  3. The 2015-16 Faculty Congress General Education Committee will evaluate the data and take a look at changes required to align our GE program with the system as a whole.