The SUNY Board of Trustees has recently passed Resolution 2021-48, a systemwide revision to its general education curriculum, to go into effect fall 2023.
This past week, two faculty town hall meetings were held on Zoom by the Binghamton University Joint Task Force — which was appointed by the University Faculty Senate Executive Committee (FSEC) and the provost — reviewing the new SUNY general education policy and the implementation plan of BU’s new general education curriculum. Students and faculty were encouraged to join and share comments and concerns.
According to the presentation, given by Sarah Reiter, co-chair of the Joint Task Force and a professor in the School of Management, communication — C, O and J credits — will have no significant changes, other than a few revised learning outcomes. Mathematics, laboratory sciences, social science, global interdependencies and physical activity and wellness will also have no significant changes. In terms of the foreign language requirement, SUNY wishes to change the terminology to “world languages,” which BU will further discuss.
Donald Loewen, another co-chair of the Joint Task Force and vice provost for undergraduate education and enrollment management, said the SUNY general education policy process began in 2018 when a draft of a proposal circulated. The first draft of the proposed SUNY general education revisions, released in spring 2021, requested comment from campus committees and constituencies.
“In fact, they had hundreds of pages of comments that came back from the system,” Loewen said. “And so they considered those to the extent that they were going to consider them and then came back with something that was somewhat different, but not some, you know, very substantially different from what they had circulated in the draft.”
The final version of the general education categories and learning outcomes, along with draft implementation guidelines, had circulated in fall 2021, after being approved by the SUNY Board of Trustees on Nov. 9.
Reiter, who presented after Loewen, said one of the difficulties with the SUNY general education system are the numerous possible approaches to implementing the curriculum. BU’s approach has designated courses in departments from the 100- to 400-level tagged as fulfilling general education requirements.
According to Reiter, the FSEC and the provost included certain requirements suggested by the Joint Task Force in BU’s implementation of the SUNY general education policy.
“The highlights of the charge that came from the [FSEC] and the provost is that we have to be able to implement the new SUNY [policy] without additional course requirements for students,” Reiter said. “The [general education] is fit so tightly in a number of different places, that we really can’t say, ‘Oh, we’ll just have an additional course.’ We’re also committed to having no major reallocation of resources associated with implementing the new SUNY general education.”
Reiter said each proposed revision plan will include working groups appointed by the Joint Task Force to ensure wide consultation and feedback on the implementations.
One of the more major revisions that Reiter described is the implementation of a new category called diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice, which will be replacing the pluralism requirement. According to the Reiter’s presentation, the first learning outcome of the new category is to “describe the historical and contemporary societal factors that shape the development of individual and group identity involving race, class and gender.”
While race, class and gender identity must be required in courses for consideration, SUNY guidelines allow courses to expand on this definition to include other aspects of diversity. Reiter described the last two learning objectives of the new category.
“The second learning outcome is the role of social structures and institutions and dynamics of power, privilege and oppression,” Reiter said. “And the third is to apply the principles of a number of different flavors of social justice to the past, current or future in the course.”
Alongside the other changes, humanities will have new learning outcomes that are much broader than BU’s current definition of the category, which is human experience through literature and philosophy, Reiter explained.
“The new humanities is [to] demonstrate knowledge of the conventions and methods of at least one of the humanities with some ideas about learning outcomes, recognizing and analyzing nuance and complexity of meaning critical reflections,” Reiter said.
The new learning outcome for aesthetics will be to have an understanding of at least one principal form of expression and its creative process. Performance-oriented courses will also have to fit requirements based on the SUNY liberal arts definition to be considered in courses.
“What campuses can decide is whether [performance-oriented] courses foster broader understanding of the principal forms of artistic expression through appreciation theory, history, looking at aesthetic principles, etc.,” Reiter said. “And this is a campus choice. You don’t have to get SUNY to agree that your courses have liberal arts content. We can decide if they have enough or some of this liberal arts content.”
The last revision presented was critical thinking and information literacy, competencies that have always been infused within the general education curriculum, but now are required to be assessed and tracked on how each student reaches them. This also comes with new learning objectives, which Reiter described.
David Vose, senior director for outreach, engagement and collections, said the Glenn G. Bartle Library will host sessions and workshops to assist faculty in incorporating information literacy into their courses. This includes tool kits for both faculty and students, and will start off with a workshop on April 22 for faculty in the humanities and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Jon Karp, one of the faculty members that joined the meeting, undergraduate director of Judaic studies and associate professor of history, provided comment on BU’s incorporation plan. As a professor that teaches courses within the pluralism requirement, Karp worried whether his courses concerning ethnicity and nationality would meet the requirements of the diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice category.
“Judging from what [Reiter] said, it sounds like [through] a certain amount of tailoring we can add categories, but if they don’t meet the strict criteria of race, gender [and] class, and I know there are ways to finesse that, then they don’t really fit that,” Karp said. “So I’m a little bit worried about the shift in focus away or the failure to include ethnicity, which I think is a very relevant category. Still and certainly historically in American life.”
In response, Nic Francisco, coordinator of the Q Center, suggested how ethnicity can be better represented within the category.
“Those classes that engage ethnicity, but do not engage race, gender and class seem like they ought to be expanded in order to more meaningfully engage issues concerning [diversity, equity, inclusion] and social justice,” Francisco wrote.
Rachel Weiss, a junior majoring in human development, said the inclusion of the new diversity category may encourage student involvement in social movements.
“In a lot of majors, students may never learn about contemporary issues surrounding race, class and gender which is solved through this new requirement,” Weiss wrote. “It also may prompt student involvement with clubs/groups on campus that pertain to social justice.”