Oswego State’s General Education Council has been trying to compile a plan to reconstruct the General Education program on campus over the past year.
Known as "Gen. Ed. 98," the General Education program went under reconstruction in the year 2000; however, that was the last time it was under review and now, 10 years later, the committee is reconvening.
"The purpose of the task force was to get the committee to examine new goals for General Education, so the committee focuses on different learning outcomes that students were able to get from taking Gen. Ed. courses," said John Hughes, the student representative for the General Education Committee. These plans have been under discussion for the past year at both Oswego State and other institutions around the country. The General Education Visionary Task Force was created to overlook the program and to clarify its purpose to students and faculty.
Chris Lalonde, director of General Education, said the committee’s main interest is to ensure that students have the knowledge and skills they’ll need in order to be successful.
"It was not the charge of this task force to recreate something or revise something, it was rather to see what’s going on around the country regarding general education," Lalonde.
Any decisions made still need to go through the channels of the faculty, including the Provost, before being submitted to the General Education Counsel. Hughes explained that, "at the current state no actual steps taken these were just ideas."
According to Susan Camp, the task force has the finished report, but is still determining the next steps of action.
"Right now we have a report from the Task Force that sits with the Faculty Assembly and we haven’t done anything with it yet," Camp said.