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UWSP Accreditation Structure and Process:
General Education

General Education Review Activities Overview and References

  • During the summer of 2006, UWSP arranged for a focused visit from a team of colleagues from AASCU institutions. The process took advantage of the Graduation Rates Outcomes Study program at AASCU but UWSP developed additional protocols in conjunction with the AASCU team; the team was on campus on November 3 and 4, 2006. The additional protocols focused attention on programmatic features peculiar to UWSP and, especially, our general education program, referred to as "the GDRs." Several aspects of their review of our general education program and campus climate for student success are summarized in documents in the Virtual Resource Room. The occasion and philosophy of the team visit, in particular, are described in AA AI 110.03.07: Overview of AASCU Study Process.
  • The AASCU team reported to the campus orally during an open campus forum on November 4, 2006 and by a formal report submitted to the chancellor and released to the campus in December of 2006. The report has been widely discussed on campus and has helped shape the ensuing activities of review for our GDRs. It is at this website both in this folder and in the Virtual Resource Room at AA AI 110.03.8: AASCU GDR Review Team Final Report. Schedules and protocols for the team visit are available at the AA AI110.03
  • UWSP has an annual Teaching Conference during the semester break. The conference of January 2007 focused on outcomes in general education as "literacies." Professor Neil Lutsky from Carleton College engaged the campus with a presentation of his FIPSE funded project on Quantitative Reasoning. The one-hundred conferees then adjourned to focus groups to consider what it meant to be literate in a range of other disciplines. A report on the conference to the funding agency is found in "OPID CD Grant Final REPORT" and the reactions of the participants are summarized in AA AI 110.70.01: Evaluation Compilations 2007 TchConf.
  • During the spring of 2007, the Provost and the Academic Affairs Committee of the faculty senate selected a team of four UWSP faculty members to research model general education programs and model processes for general education revision at comparable campuses across the country. The charge to this team is found at AA AI 110.03.90: Charge to the Campus GDR Research Team. Their report is being discussed in the faculty senate during the fall and spring of 2007/08 and is distributed campus wide via the accreditation Virtual Resource Room under at AA AI 110.03.95: Report of the Campus GDR Research Team.
  • The next step, as of this writing, is for the Academic Affairs Committee to establish and enact a process for revisions of the GDR program.