The Human Community

Inside this issue

AAC&U President Praises JMU’s Gen Ed Program / 2

General Education Council / 2

Ninth Annual General Education Student Conference / 3

GenEd Summer in Scotland / 4

Faculty News / 5

The View from Maury HallDear colleagues and friends,

From my new office in Maury Hall, I have a great view of the Quad. It’s a great view because I enjoy watching people moving to and fro, catching sight of familiar faces, and feeling visually connected to the vibrant spirit of this academic community. More than that, I sit in the original academic building, the structure that originally housed all of the Normal’s classrooms, its library, its registrar’s office, and its bookstore. Though much has changed since 1908, our institution’s student-centered culture and commitment to equip graduates for meaningful and productive lives has not.

The past year was a meaningful and productive one for the general education program, its faculty, and

its students. The major activity of 2012-2013 was processing the APR report and making decisions about how to respond to the external review team’s recommendations. We spent considerable time discussing ways to increase faculty and student engagement, and we began a new project to make cluster-level assessment results more useful to program faculty. We resumed the GenEd summer grants for faculty, we partnered with numerous units to pilot a new, online Freshmen Registration model, and we joined with the Madison Collaborative to host workshops for Cluster Four and Cluster Five faculty who want to infuse ethical reasoning into existing courses. And finally, the program leadership shifted on

July 1. Though the name on the

program’s office door has

changed, the cluster coordinators

and I remain at your service.

Sincerely,

Meg Mulrooney

Associate Vice Provost

University Programs

By Meg Mulrooney, Associate Vice Provost, University Programs

n F A L L 2 0 1 3 Division of Academic Affairs

HumanCommunitythe

Save the Date

Friday, Feb. 28, 2014

GenEd Night at the Forbes Center

hosted by the General Education Program

Teaching faculty will once again be guests of the

Gen Ed program and enjoy an evening of fun and

festivity. Look for your email invitation soon!.

Photo by Allyson Taylor

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Meg Mulrooney, 568-8179 Associate Vice Provost

Gretchen Hazard, 568-3428 Cluster One Coordinator

Dennis Beck, 568-6386 Interim Cluster Two Coordinator

Scott Paulson, 568-4567 Cluster Three Coordinator

Raymond “Skip” Hyser, 568-6043 Cluster Four Coordinator

Georgia Polacek, 568-7097 Cluster Five Coordinator

Tanya Fitzpatrick, 568-2852 Administrative Assistant

Our People

Sustainability matters to us at

James Madison University. Our

recycled ratios for this

publication are 25 percent post-

consumer and 50 percent total

recycled. This publication is

printed on paper and produced

by a print vendor that are both

certified by the Forest

Stewardship Council.

General Education CouncilThe GEC functions as a college-level C&I committee charged with curricular oversight of the general

education program and also serves an advisory body to the program staff. Following on the heels of the recent program review, the Council is discussing several new projects this year, including whether or not to remove the ‘G’ from program courses and the feasibility of an app to help students and advisors monitor program requirements. The Council is chaired by Phil Heap, Economics, and meets monthly. For a list of Council meeting dates and location, please see the GEC page on the general education program website, http://www.jmu.edu/gened/GECSpring2009.shtml. (Be on the lookout for GEC World Cafés!) Faculty colleagues who are developing new courses for general education credit or are modifying or creating programs that include general education courses can find the program’s C&I handbook and guiding principles on the main website.

The GEC approved several C&I proposals last year:• Changes to course descriptions for GWRTC 103: Critical Reading & Writing and GPHIL 120: Ethical

Reasoning, both in Cluster One• Approval of GISAT 100: Issues in Energy and the Environment, a new course in Cluster Three, Group 2 • Approval of BIO222: Biology for Engineering and Physical Sciences, a new course offering in Cluster Three,

Group 3• Changes to prerequisites for MATH 205: Introductory Calculus I

Unless noted, photos in this publication have been contributed by University Photography Services: Katie Landis and Mike Miriello.

AAC&U President Praises JMU’s Gen Ed ProgramDr. Carol Geary Schneider, President of the American Association of College & Universities visited campus on Oct. 16. She toured some of our buildings, met with students, faculty, and upper administration, and gave a public address in the evening. It was an important visit for the General Education program for several reasons. First, it brought one of the nation’s chief advocates for liberal education to JMU. Dr. Schneider is the prime mover behind the AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) project, a public advocacy and campus action initiative designed to engage the public in a new conversation about the core purpose of a college education in the twenty-first century. As Schneider explained, LEAP recognizes that college graduates need higher levels of learning and knowledge as well as strong intellectual and practical skills if they are to navigate life successfully and responsibly. LEAP, however, challenges the traditional American practice of providing liberal education to some students and narrow job training to others. She recognized and applauded JMU as one of hundreds of campuses trying to ensure that all college graduates achieve certain essential learning outcomes no matter what majors they choose. Second, Schneider specifically praised the central role of our general education program in fostering these and other liberal education outcomes. She underscored the importance to students’ long-term success of “a strong, well-organized, common intellectual experience such as your General Education provides,” and celebrated the program as a “‘marker’ for higher education nationally.” Although Schneider has said similar things about our program in the past, it was wonderful to hear them spoken on our campus in front of our people.

To see and hear Schneider’s address in its entirety, visit the Madison Vision Series website at http://www.jmu.edu/president/mvs/features/schneider-video.shtml. For more information about LEAP, visit the AAC&U website: http://www.aacu.org/leap/vision.cfm

The Human Community

Quality Academic Work on Display at the Ninth Annual General Education Student Conference

The Ninth Annual General Education Conference took place on October 4, 2013, a beautiful fall day. As usual, we had a wide range of presentations with titles such as “Early Chinese Beliefs and Practices Regarding the Afterlife” and “Experiences of the Vietnam

War.” There were also multiple panels engaging contemporary concerns, including environmental literacy and nuclear weapons. Held the Friday of Family Weekend and followed by a gala banquet in the festival ballroom, the conference helps us communicate the

continued importance of liberal education programs in American higher education while celebrating the exceptional academic work done by our own undergraduates. Please join us in congratulating this year’s student presenters:

Thank Yous

A special thank you to

faculty members who

nominated students from

their general education

courses and gave them the

opportunity to share their

academic achievements

beyond the classroom.

Daisy Breneman

Lori Britt

Kerry Dobransky

Sheila Fielding

T.J. Fitzgerald

Julie Gochenour

Gretchen Hazard

Yongguang Hu

Tim LaPira

Paul Mabrey

James McGinnis

Michael Moghtader

Leigh Nelson

John Ott

Alex Parrish

Steven Reich

Michael Seth

Debra Sutton

Jay Varner

Emily Westkaemper

Andrew Witmer

We also recognize the

faculty members who

volunteered to serve as

moderators for panel sessions:

Daisy Breneman

Lori Britt

Kerry Dobransky

Sheila Fielding

T. J. Fitzgerald

Mary Gayne

Paul Mabrey

James McGinnis

Steven Reich

Michael Seth

Jay Varner

Emily Westkamper

Andrew Witmer

Katherine AllisonMary ArczynskiLauren ArgenbrightAngelica BabautaGreg BahouJennifer BellJames BradySarah BujnowskiJake ButterworthLuke ByrnesKristen CarterJulianne CavanaughSara ClemmerBen CroninAimee CunninghamHayley DanielsHayley DanielsAlexandra DeAngelisMargo DeihlAlyssa DiGirolamoDanielle EdlingRenata Esquillo

Kaylie EtheridgeKimberly FoleyGian GonzalesZachary GordonKelsey HamHaley HoffSavannah HoweLindsey HuberTaylor HuffKatrina LauerHayley LeopoldThomas LesterSamantha LoganKyle LundquistBrooke MayJenna McAvoyJacqueline MetzgarSiria MinayaElizabeth MottBrittany MoyerLaura NettunoKevin O'Connor

Mike O'DayTaylor O'DonnellMinYoung ParkJustin PartlowSeth ReedSamantha RimerMolly RobbBecky RosenSarah RosengardEvan RudyDestiny SimmonsZachary SmithMomoko SullivanJon TeconchukEric ThornhillJaclyn WaterfieldJoseph WilsonAlesea WimmerElizabeth WronkoXue YangKevin Yao

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Our family thinks the gened requirements are wonderful to expose students to topics they may have never chosen to pursue. We are very proud of our student and appreciate being included in honoring her hard work. Excellent speaker! Thanks also to Daisy B. for selecting our daughter's work!

– A proud parent of a JMU student

The General Education Student Conference banquet, Festival Ballroom, October 4, 2013.

Photo courtesy of Tanya Fitzpatrick.

GenEd Summer Semester in Scotland

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Scotland program participants outside Mansfield Church in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy of student Katie Shedden.

The first Summer Semester in Scotland was a great success. This unique study abroad program, specifically designed for any JMU undergraduate, includes 12 credits of General Education coursework from four clusters. Twenty-eight students comprised the first cohort. They travelled first to Edinburgh, where they took Scottish Literature (GENG 221) from a University of Edinburgh faculty member and Global Politics (GPOSC 200) from JMU faculty Jessica Adolino. The

students then went to St. Andrews, where they took Geology (GGEOL 102) from a University of St. Andrews faculty member and Kinesiology (GKIN 100) from JMU faculty Bobby Lifka. For summer 2014 the offerings will include Microsociology (GSOCI 140), Scottish Literature, Global Politics and Geology. If you are interested in learning more about the program or opportunities to teach in Scotland beyond 2014, contact program director Bernd Kaussler (Political Science) kausslbx@jmu.edu .

SAGE Grants

Co-sponsored by the Office of International Programs, Study Abroad General Education (SAGE) grants allow two faculty each year to travel overseas and make plans for a new version of an exist-ing course. Last year’s recipients were: Dr. Chris Davis, History, who journeyed to Vienna and Berlin, where he will offer a version of GHUM251: Modern Perspectives; and Dr. Ken Rutherford, Politi-cal Science, who spent time in Vietnam preparing to offer a version of GPOSC200: Global Politics. Their SAGE courses will run in Summer 2014. Thanks to everyone who applied for this year’s grants. The deadline was November 30, 2013 and awards will be announced soon.

Photo by Dr. Chris Davis.

New Information Literacy Assessment Instrument: MREST

Over the last year, information literacy at JMU has had a face lift. The new information literacy suite is now called Madison Research Essentials (MREST). The two features of the suite are the Madison Research Essentials Toolkit (available on the home page of the library) and the Madison Research Essentials Test (MREST). The Toolkit is a series of videos designed to get students acclimated to university level research and prepare them to take the MREST. The MREST competency test is a Cluster One General Education graduation requirement that must be completed during a student's first year at the university. Communication Studies has agreed to require students enrolled in GCOM to pass the MREST as a course requirement. The deadline for all students to pass the MREST (whether they are enrolled in GCOM or not) is the Friday before Spring Break. Changes to the MREST ensure that all JMU students are prepared to effectively use the ever-changing landscape of information literacy.

The Human Community

Provost’s Award for Excellence in Academic Advising

This award is given each year to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the University through advising. The winners for 2012 are: Hak-Seon Lee, Political Science, for Departmental Advising; Michael Deaton, ISAT, for Graduate Advising; and Deborah Warnaar, Chemistry & Biochemistry, for Freshman Advising. Please congratulate them if you see them.

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New Faces

Tanya Fitzpatrick joined the program as its primary administrative assistant last Spring. She has been working at JMU for many years and came to Gen Ed from a position in Rose Library. Among other duties, she fields phone calls and emails from students, parents, and faculty; tracks the program budget; uploads milestones and test scores; and supports the General Education Council.

Photo courtesy of T. Fitzpatrick.

Dennis Beck is serving as Interim Cluster Two Coordinator

this year. An Associate Professor in Theater and Dance, where he was scheduling coordinator, he replaces Bill Hawk, who has gone on to chair the Madison Collaborative: Ethical Reasoning in Action. Dennis chairs the Cluster Two Committee, coordinates enrollments across nine departments, oversees cluster assessment, and reviews student appeals. An actor and director as well as a teacher and a scholar, his expertise includes Czech theatre and 20th-century European and American theatre, as well as 20th-century theory and criticism.

Photo courtesy of D. Beck.

SoTL in Gen EdDr. Georgia Polacek, Cluster

Five coordinator and professor of Health Sciences, has been actively engaged in the scholarship of teaching of learning (SoTL). She recently published an article based on her research on the impact of Cluster Five Wellness coursework on wellness behavior. Co-authored with T. Dary Irwin and Jennifer G. Rau, both of the School of Leadership Studies, the essay, titled “The Longitudinal Impact of an

Undergraduate General Education Wellness Course in Early Adulthood,” was published in The Journal of Health Education Teaching, Vol. 4, Issue 1 (2013) at http://jhetonline.com/current_issue_of_the_jhet_2013. Polachek and her colleagues found that not only did students demonstrate improved behavior from freshman to sophomore year, but the behavior continued as alumni.

Photo by Casey Templeton.

Are YOU doing SoTL research that focuses on General Education outcomes or teaching? Let us know!

While Kristen is an outstanding teacher in a number of classes, this award specifically recognizes her teaching in the General Education Program, specifically GGEOL 115, Earth Systems and Climate Change, which fulfills a requirement in Cluster Three: The Natural World. Kristen not only teaches it regularly, but she also led a major redesign effort for the course six years ago. The two most important criteria for the award, however, are demonstrated impact on student learning and ability to help students make interdisciplinary connections. The award committee noted that, “Dr. St. John embraces interdisciplinary, interactive teaching, and, in doing so, provides many opportunities for her students to practice critical and self-reflective thinking about the intersection of geology and other courses in the Human Community.” Her colleagues call her “an outstanding teacher, a productive research scientist, a dependable and tireless colleague, a national leader in the field of college and university-level pedagogy, and a wonderful role model for young scientists, women and educators.” Kristin received her PhD from the Ohio State University and her research interests encompass both paleoceanography and paleoclimatology AND geoscience education. Congratulations, Kristin!

Photo courtesy of K. St. John.

Dr. Kristin St. John Receives the 2013 General Education Distinguished Teacher Award

MSC 1104 Harrisonburg, VA 22807

Gener al EducatioN

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