Council Document 96-3
February 5, 1996          
For Discussion             

 TO:     Council of Faculty Delegates

FROM:   Research and Educational Policy Committee

RE:     Establishment of the General Education Oversight
          Committee

The General Education Oversight Committee is hereby established.  The General Education Oversight Committee is charged to set operational guidelines for implementing the General Education Program consonant with the general education philosophy, objectives, and requirements approved by the Council of Faculty Delegates. 

Specifically, the General Education Oversight Committee

 - shall review those courses proposed to it by academic departments as general education courses, shall validate each such course as fulfilling or failing to fulfill the general education purpose proposed by the originating academic department(s), and shall so notify the proposing department(s), deans, and the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs,

 - shall be responsible for ensuring that every course validated by it is appropriately identified in the Purdue University Calumet catalog,

 - shall undertake a continuing review and re-validation of every validated general education course, so that each course is reviewed at least once every four years,

 - shall provide to the faculty and the administration an annually updated General Education Course List that identifies those courses validated as satisfying one or more of the General Education Objectives, and

 - shall implement and administer an assessment procedure for the General Education Program and recommend program revisions, as appropriate, to the Research and Educational Policy Committee.

 - shall provide oversight for the General Education Oversight Subcommittees described below.

The General Education Oversight Committee will consist of seven members, six faculty from each of the three subcommittees listed below and necessarily including the chair of each subcommittee plus one other member elected by that subcommittee.  The General Education Coordinator, a faculty member selected by the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, shall serve as chair of the General Education Oversight Committee. 

Three subcommittees, organized by academic areas with common interests, are hereby established to support the General Education Committee in carrying out its charge.  The charge to the subcommittees is to receive, and review courses designated as meeting general education requirements from those departments represented by its constituent members.  The appropriate subcommittee will, upon review, make its recommendation for validation (or lack thereof) to the General Education Oversight Committee.  In the event of one course being proposed by more than one academic department, one of the departments will take the lead in moving the proposal to a subcommittee.

Each of these subcommittees shall consist of the number of members as detailed below.  The subcommittee member from each academic area shall be chosen by the faculty of the Purdue University Calumet academic department which administers baccalaureate degree programs in that discipline.  These subcommittee members shall serve terms of three years.  Initial committee members will serve one, two, or three years as determined by the General Education Coordinator.  Each subcommittee shall annually elect a chair to lead it, and this chairperson and another elected subcommittee representative shall serve as members of the General Education Committee.

The subcommittees and the academic disciplines comprising each are as follows:

 - Subcommittee A, composed of one faculty member from each of the following disciplines: Construction Technology; Information Systems and Computer Programming; Mechanical Engineering Technology, Supervision, Electrical Engineering Technology, Restaurant, Hotel and Institutional Management; and Management.

 - Subcommittee B, composed on one faculty member from each of the following disciplines: Sociology; Psychology; Political Science; Communications; English; Philosophy; Foreign Languages and Literatures; and History.

- Subcommittee C, composed of one faculty member from each of the following disciplines: Chemistry; Physics; Mathematics; Engineering; Biology; Nursing; and Education.

The General Education Oversight Committee is established as a subordinate committee, in accordance with ByLaw 4.01 C., of the Research and Education Policy Committee which shall have oversight responsibility for it.  The General Education Oversight Committee will be responsible for recommending to the Council through the Research and Education Policy Committee changes in subcommittee membership, number and composition.

Approved:      Disapproved:   Absent:

C. Chancey     None              None

S. Conners

L. Mura

S. Singer

D. Kark, Chair