1. Why is the General Education program undertaking recertification of the elective courses?  And what do I need to know before starting the process?

• The Gen Ed elective categories were recently revised and, for the first time, the General Education Review Committee (GERC) has developed expectations for the scope and shared objectives for courses in each category.  Please familiarize yourself with the new elective categories and descriptions before proceeding with your proposal.
• The General Education program recently approved new learning goals and outcomes (the General Education Learning Outcomes or GELOs).  GERC wishes to publicize these outcomes and ensure that the elective courses are providing relevant instruction and practice so that students are able to achieve the GELOs by the end of their Gen Ed program.  Click here to review the new GELOs.
• Instructors play an important role in conveying the value and purpose of the general education program in general, and the elective courses in particular.  To that end, GERC asks that instructors to update their syllabi to clearly identify their course as part of the Gen Ed program and explain how the course contributes to student’s achievement of the GELOs.  Before proceeding with recertification, please review the syllabus guidelines for general education elective courses and view some model syllabi.  
• Last, but not least, GERC has designed the recertification process to generate data for assessing student learning across the general education program.  To the end, instructors seeking Gen Ed recertification (or initial designation) during 2018 are asked to provide information about the relevant learning outcomes, instruction, and classroom-level assessment practices in their course(s).   This information will be collected through a Qualtrics survey (the link to the survey is embedded in the CourseLeaf form).  Click here to review a sample Qualtrics survey.   

2. Which courses are affected?

• All current general education elective courses (approved before 2018) must go through re-certification. 
• An up-to-date list of all current general education electives is available in the Undergraduate Catalog. 

3. What is the process for requesting recertification?

Recertification will take place through CourseLeaf using the relevant Course Form.  Open the form, fill out the general information at the top, and then scroll down to the General Education elective category area.  

4. What about multi-section courses?  

• Only one recertification proposal and survey should be submitted per course but it is expected that all relevant instructors are collaborating on the process and that the information provided to GERC reflects the commonalities across all sections.  
• Just one representative course syllabus should be submitted.   

5. What is the time frame for recertification?

• Proposals may be submitted through Fall 2018.  All recertification requests must be approved by the UCC no later than its January 2019 meeting.  
• Courses that are not recertified by January 2019 will lose their Gen Ed designation in Spring 2020.  
• Instructors and departments are strongly urged to complete the recertification process in Spring or Summer 2018.

6. How does the approval process work?

• Proposals requesting recertification of the general education designation only (no curricular changes) will go directly from the Department Chair to GERC. Proposals containing other curricular changes will go through the regular workflow.
• Proposals that receive a positive recommendation from GERC will proceed through the regular workflow to the UCC, the decision-making body.
• If a proposal raises concerns in some way, and would therefore not receive a positive recommendation from GERC, the proposer will be contacted immediately by the chair of GERC with options on how to proceed.

7. Is it possible to request other course revisions simultaneously with recertification?

• Yes.  In that case, the proposal will first go to the relevant College Curriculum Committee for approval before coming to the Gen Ed Review Committee.

8. What if an instructor or department does not wish to retain any Gen Ed elective designation?

• Please request decertification for such courses.  This is a very easy process that involves just checking the box labeled “Decertification.” No further explanation or documentation is necessary.