General Education Fair
Feb. 15-17, Schulz 3001

The General Education Subcommittee announces a "GE Fair" and invites faculty, students, staff and administration to drop in or attend special events to learn about the planning and progress toward GE Reform.

The three-day fair will be held on:

Feb. 15               8 a.m.-6 p.m.
Feb. 16               8 a.m.-6 p.m.
Feb. 17               8 a.m.-3 p.m.

Primary Goals

  • Excite campus community about positive potentials for GE revision at SSU
  • Inform campus community about other GE revision successes nationwide and establish a baseline of knowledge
  • To get new input on other possibilities and new ideas about what GE is and how it can be done
  • Become engaged in the process of GE reform
  • Unveil the First-Year Experience proposal: "First Class"
  • Provide people and opportunity to get a better understanding of why an integrated FYE is important
  • What, why and how to inspire learning through FYE
  • Understand the urgent context for GE reform
  • Have a base-line understanding of GE reform and its issues
  • WASC mandate for GE change
  • Showcase best GE practices on our own campus
  • Be exposed to cutting edge, outstanding GE programs at other universities
  • Communicate the potential for a new GE approach
  • Share our own GE expertise in pedagogy and curriculum
  • A sense of the multiplicity of possibilities of GE
  • Understand the interconnectedness of the six points of the "New Path for General Education at Sonoma State University" (May 2003), and why this will improve the academic environment for faculty, students and majors so that the campus community has a sense of how the GE PATH supports GE MGOs, and how the GE MGOs support the University's Academic Mission
  • Why is GE important to the student?
  • To know what students expect to get from GE courses and what they don't want
  • What could the GE program become? How will it make the student excited and interested?
  • Show possible assessment tools for GE program and courses

Secondary Goals

  • Provide Departments and Schools tools for moving forward on GE revision within their areas
  • Poster sessions that would have some professional development such as better understanding of information competence and writing and a few simple tips
  • Faculty will learn simple strategies to implement in GE curriculum now to bring learning outcomes in line with future GE program
  • Understand that GE reform can open up rich and fun opportunities for good work--for faculty, students, & staff
  • To gauge campus community's level of interest in GE programs
  • GE + the Major = How can these work together? Is this a false split? Why is GE seen as something to get over in order to get to the "good stuff?"
  • How do other institutions work with GE?
  • FYE models

What should an SSU graduate know and be able to do?  
What distinguishes an SSU grad?

•  Writing Across the Curriculum
•  The FYE syllabus
•  "Basic Skills" and GE

For further information, contact Paul Draper, 4-3904 or paul.draper@sonoma.edu.