CAS Policy Committee Resolution on Proposed Changes to UB's General Education Program

(Passed December 12, 2001; vote 21-1-1)

The Policy Committee has held extensive discussions about the new SUNY General Education requirements and the curricular and resource implications of adding the SUNY-mandated requirements to UB’s current General Education program.

The CAS Curriculum Committee (CASCC) has recommended that some existing UB General Education requirements, which are in excess of the new SUNY mandate, be reduced in order to accommodate the SUNY-mandated additions. The CAS Dean's Office has prepared cost assessments of this proposal, hereafter called CASCC, and several other possible models for General Education at UB.

Among the models analyzed were:

• UB + SUNY MINIMUM -- all current UB General Education requirements and the new SUNY-mandated requirements, applied to all entering freshman and transfer students
• CASCC -- current UB General Education requirements, with reduced mathematical science, natural science and foreign language components, plus all new SUNY-mandated requirements, applied to all entering freshmen and transfer students
• SUNY MINIMUM -- UB's current General Education program replaced by the SUNY-mandated program and applied to all entering freshmen and transfer students
• CASCC falls between UB + SUNY MINIMUM and SUNY MINIMUM in cost and impact

If sufficient additional resources can be provided to CAS by either UB or SUNY, the CAS Policy Committee favors adoption of the CASCC model, applied to both entering freshman and transfers, at a net additional cost of approximately $800,000 per year. Failing the provision of significant additional resources, the Policy Committee endorses implementation of the CASCC program with deferral for transfer students of certain components (Arts, World Civilization, American History / Pluralism).

 

Comments

In any of the models which attempt to preserve some of the distinctive features of UB's current General Education Program, CAS will suffer a severe negative impact on its upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research programs unless significant additional UB or SUNY resources are provided to handle the inefficiencies which will result.

There are two sources for these inefficiencies:

1. a shifted and increased demand, concentrated in relatively few lower-division courses already "bursting at the seams"

2. a nearly compensating diffuse reduced demand for upper-division elective courses which are currently provided in barely adequate numbers

Even the minimal cost SUNY MINIMUM model has negative side-effects since it produces a rapid and significant shift in lower-division course demand from one cluster of CAS departments and programs (humanities, mathematical sciences, natural sciences) to another (History, Arts)