1. AAC&U Conference Report
February 15-17, 2017
Philadelphia, PA

2. Main Messages
1. All institutions that presented a successful framework for re-envisioning their general education program included some element of a “freshman seminar” course for credit. The most beneficial seemed to be interdisciplinary, project-based courses.
2. GE is cross disciplinary and as such one area/dept/discipline should not have lead ownership over GE courses. This includes faculty working in interdisciplinary teams for course development.
3. Creating a schedule for periodic review and continuous assessment of general education is critical.
1. Helping students understand why they’re in college, the opportunities available to them at the university, bringing in the co-curricular aspects of a university education (organized engagement for student development, wellness, and student life)—this is what makes it worth coming to college. Project-based courses engage students in issues they care about and seeing problems within that issue that they want to explore. This way all of the co-curricular aspects of the university can be introduced within a context so that students can utilize some of the resources or talk to some of the people while they are trying to solve the problem they’re addressing in their project.
2. There should be a collaboration between different faculty, between faculty and student affairs, with support offices and advisors, etc. Everyone whose offices/programs relate to the course should be part of its development and implementation. Different people from different departments and offices should teach the course. Territoriality cannot come into play.
3. In the same ways we assess our own effectiveness in whatever work we do, we need to continually assess GE. Even if we revise it or change it, that doesn’t mean we don’t have to think about it again. There is always new research, new approaches that we could incorporate. We don’t want it to stagnate.

3. Main Message Cont.
4. The timeline that we gathered from most presentations averages 4-6 years from conception to full implementation. As we shared our timeline with others at the conference many thought our goal was too ambitious thinking we wanted a full implementation in that timeframe. We share the concern that six months to implementation is not feasible for the change we are hoping to accomplish. However, the goal is not implementation rather creating a framework to facilitate discussion with specific parameters tied to our learning outcomes.
5. The crucial first stage of the reform process for most schools included dialogue across their campuses. A university-wide narrative about the value of GE and transparency from the committee is important.
4. We want to dream big, and that requires for us to hold off on determining exactly how we are going to accomplish our new vision. This committee is a think-tank brought together to see if we can come up with a different way our students could progress through their college educations. Let’s start thinking of what our Re-envisioned Undergraduate education might look like. We need to come up with a new framework for OUR students. Who are OUR students? Why are they here? What do they need? How can we make sure OUR students get what they need?
5. After developing a general vision for what we want the undergrad experience to look like, we need to pause the process and develop a clear and consistent narrative about what we are thinking, why we are developing that approach, holding different dialogues across campus so that everyone can give their input at different stages. Then we test out our narrative, start sharing it far and wide, and develop the structure that will allow us to accomplish what we claim in that narrative. People need to buy into the approach, at least a majority of UVU employees, for it to actually improve students’ undergrad experiences.

4. Timeline Average 4-6 years from conception to full implementation
Most started with a small pilot program to work out the kinks before institution-wide implementation
Fall implementation with an option for those already enrolled to chose to finish the former program or to opt into the new program

5. Successful Programs
American University: 
CUNY System – York College:  affairs/general-education-reform/general-education-reform
Central Piedmont Community College:  core-competencies?searchterm=general+education
Thomas Nelson Community College:  certificate

6. Student Perspective
Chelsie
Taylor