General Education and Assessment:
New Contexts, New Cultures

February 23-25, 2012
New Orleans, Louisiana

Program Highlights

Thursday, February 23, 2012

7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Keynote Address: Learning and Discovery in an Era of Change

Elizabeth Coffman, Associate Professor and Program Director, International Film and Media Studies program, Loyola University Chicago; James P. Collins, Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and Environment, Arizona State University; and Ted Hardin, Film and Video Professor, Columbia College Chicago

Students come to college to learn about their world, hoping to change it for the better. What opportunities do they have to examine their ideals, assess expectations, and discover solutions to society’s most compelling problems? This plenary will open with the story of the Mississippi River Delta region as an example of the multi-faceted, evolving, and unscripted challenges for which college must prepare students. The speakers will provide insights into how general education can offer students the opportunity to study complex problems that require interdisciplinary approaches, integrative skills, and ethical decision-making in an era of change.

Friday, February 24, 2012

9:15 – 10:45 a.m.  
Plenary: Making Sense of the New Learning Landscape

Steve H. Murdock, Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Professor of Sociology at Rice University and former Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census; Barbara Wright, Vice President, Western Association of Schools and Colleges; and Kathleen Blake Yancey, Kellogg H. Hunt Professor of English, Florida State University

The plenary will open with an overview of our changing students, followed by a discussion of how today’s students require that our institutions change in profound ways—loosening curricula, developing more rigorous assessments, and blending students’ non-campus-based learning with institutional aspirations for student development—professional, personal, and civic. The speakers will also examine e-portfolios as a way to document, discuss, and assess students’ many modes of learning in connected, reflective, and educative ways.

2:15 – 3:45 p.m.
Plenary: Building Cultures of Faculty Engagement

Michele Cuomo, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, City University of New York Queensborough Community College; Robert Collins, Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy and Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Dillard University; Cynthia Gomez, Instructor, Portland State University; Norman Jones, Professor of History, Utah State University; and Gary Rhoades, Professor of Higher Education, University of Arizona          

MODERATOR: Susan Gano-Phillips, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan-Flint

Faculty members share a common stake in the quality and outcomes of the general education that their students experience. This plenary provides an opportunity for faculty members to share their visions for and experiences with re-conceptualizing general education. They will talk about strategies that are effectively weaving general education outcomes throughout the undergraduate experience, with an emphasis on the relationships between faculty, core curricula, and the structures necessary to advance faculty members’ innovation and leadership.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

8:00 – 9:00 a.m.
Plenary: One Word That’s Powering General Education Reform (It’s Not “Plastics”)

Paul Gaston, Trustees Professor of English, Kent State University

In the light of epiphanies that continue to inspire the reform of general education, this plenary will focus on greater intentionality as the essential platform for improved quality. A commitment to intentionality requires the clarification and pursuit of explicit incremental student learning outcomes—as well as assiduous assessment to measure the effectiveness with which they are accomplished. Faculty must express through the design and evaluation of general education the same scholarly values implicit in their scholarship: clarity of objectives, thoughtful congruence between method and desired results, and receptivity to constructive advice. The result should be more integrative and developmentally nuanced general education programs designed to lead students to clear goals. Gaston will offer a new vison for general education that is ironically the oldest of visions: Students learn more effectively when they understand and appreciate the priorities that structure their work.