Design Committee Updates
JANUARY 2020
In the fall of 2018, BYU President Kevin J Worthen issued a charge to BYU faculty and staff concerning BYU’s General Education program.
“BYU deserves a general education program that captures and reinforces our university identity, is easy for students and faculty to navigate, provides more common learning experiences, and is more efficient.”
Some of the most commonly expressed student concerns about GE courses included too many courses to choose from, each with a series of discrete requirements, and a lack of understanding of why the GE courses were necessary or how the courses related to their major.
Throughout 2019, the General Education Design Committee gathered input, hosted spirited discussions about the purposes and possible shapes of general education at BYU, and studied and prepared four conceptual GE models that all fit within President Worthen’s description of what a GE program should offer:
IDENTITY. GE at BYU should reflect an unambiguous sense of our institutional identity and values, as expressed by the principles in BYU’s Mission and Aims;
SIMPLICITY. GE at BYU should enable students to easily chart an intentional course through GE, and also expect students to recognize and articulate the values embedded in a liberal education;
COMMONALITY. GE at BYU should be built around a core curriculum;
EFFICIENCY. Given that the core will likely will reduce the number of GE courses that count for both GE and major credit, the models should reduce the total hours below what is currently required.
Now in 2020, a refreshed GE Design Committee is undertaking the difficult task of proposing a model that is feasible in terms of limitations on budget, full-time employees, space, and professional development.
By university policy, all course and program changes must be approved by the University Curriculum Council, and in some cases (and a GE program would be one) by the Academic Vice President’s Council, the President’s Council, and finally by the Board of Trustees. No recommendations have been made to any of these bodies; no decision has been made about any part of a still imaginary whole. The earliest a proposal might be prepared for the UCC would be this fall (Sept. 2020).
There is far more work yet to be done than has been done, and many ways for you to contribute to the effort. Stay tuned for continued updates and opportunities to participate in the re-shaping of general education.