The General Education Program at Temple provides the breadth of knowledge that complements the depth that students receive in their majors, minors, and certificates. We are committed to general education first and foremost because it is central to Temple’s mission to provide an “education that prepares students for careers, further learning and active citizenship.” It is also a legislative requirement as a state-related institution, and is required for accreditation. How we structure general education is up to us, although we are guided by our mission, our accreditation, the legislative environment, and best practices from the field.
The current system of General Education at Temple is commonly known as GenEd and it has been in place at Temple since 2008. Students who enter Temple with no previous college experience take the full 11-course General Education program. All students take Analytical Reading and Writing, Intellectual Heritage: The Good Life, and Intellectual Heritage: The Common Good. Students then choose from an array of electives in the following areas: Quantitative Literacy, Race & Diversity, Science & Technology (2 courses), Human Behavior, U.S. Society, Global Society, and the Arts. In the current system, General Education courses generally cannot double-count towards majors, and they have an interdisciplinary design.
As with Temple’s programs and departments, General Education goes through periodic program review. The most recent review was last year. It sparked a larger review and reform process. The review started in the Fall of 2022 with a self-study conducted by the former Director Dr. Jon Nyquist and the Associate Director Dr. Patricia Moore-Martinez. That self-study reviewed a wealth of assessment data, survey findings, and other information to produce a large overview of the state of the program. It was shared with two leaders from peer institutions who visited campus in February of 2023 and met with students, faculty, advisors, staff, and administrators. The report that they sent us a few weeks later formed the call to create a General Education Review Task Force, who will ultimately report to the General Education Review Steering Committee.
Essentially, the process of review has been moving through different levels: the General Education office, the external reviewers, the Temple community writ-large, and the Temple faculty and administration leadership. Central to the review process is the commitment to listening to a wide array of stakeholders.
So far, listening has taken place in the following ways:
- A survey shared with the entire Temple community,
- Student focus groups conducted within classes (these are on-going),
- A student survey,
- Visits to collegial assemblies to meet with faculty,
- Listening sessions with advising directors and advisors,
- Listening sessions and a survey with adjunct faculty (more work to engage adjunct faculty will come soon),
- Meetings with deans, associate deans, and other administrators.
What are the major concerns that have been raised so far?
- The relationship between general education and majors: It can feel like there is a gap between general education and the majors, both intellectually and structurally. The courses are designed with a focus on interdisciplinarity. The instructors are from departments, but in many cases instructors of general education are not also teaching within the major. General Education courses are not functioning as pathways into majors for students who need a major, or who would benefit from a second major (or minor), or who need to change major.
- The transfer experience: Temple has many different types of transfer students, and they all engage our General Education system in different ways. Temple’s General Education system is very unique, which makes finding course equivalencies difficult, and some students feel as if they are repeating coursework unfairly. In other cases, a transferring course is counted towards a breadth area even though the same course at Temple would not count. Frustration and confusion about General Education may contribute to declines in transfer enrollments.
- Lack of cohesion: Students feel like General Education is a checklist of unrelated requirements. We are looking at ways to build General Education into a more systematic curriculum while maintaining student choice within that curriculum. For instance, a capstone course would allow students to reflect back on their experience and see the linkages across the areas of study.
The task force has spent the year working in three committees:
- The macrolevel committee is focused on big picture questions of potential redesigns for the program. They have examined innovative approaches to general education from around the country. They are exploring possibilities of a first-year seminar, a capstone course, and optional certificates within the system, as well as revising the learning outcomes for the program.
- The mesolevel committee is examining the current curriculum to find particular strengths and opportunities. They are considering ways to build connections to the majors, allowing General Education courses to serve as pathways into the major. They are also considering the current role of placement tests and the possibility of building a bridge between General Education and non-English language study.
- The microlevel committee is reviewing the governance and policies of General Education. This includes the role of the administrative staff, the General Education Executive Committee (a Faculty Senate governance committee), the area coordinators and course coordinators, and the official curriculum policies.
The listening phase will culminate in the 2024 General Educate Summer Institute. 130 students, faculty (part-time and full-time), advisors, staff from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and the Student Success Center, and administrators (deans and associate deans) will spend two days reviewing the information that we have collected, while they also engage in creative problem-solving and ideation activities to imagine the future of general education at Temple.
The summer institute will mark the shift from General Education Review to General Education Reform. After the institute, concrete suggestions from participants will go back to the task force for consideration. No proposals will be immediate. We will spend the academic year 2024-2025 putting forward a range of individual proposals and examining them in terms of their potential impact and feasibility. This will culminate in a combined General Education proposal that will need to be discussed with stakeholders around the university: students, collegial assemblies, college administrators, and Temple’s central administration. Before any newly approved curriculum can take effect, it also needs to be aligned with Temple systems like Banner and the Bulletin.
We are aiming for a revised program by Fall of 2027, but also seeking to create a program that can be more easily revised as needed thereafter.
If you have ideas you want to share for the process, please visit our website and click on the survey!
