WCU General Education News

May 2023

As of 4/25/23, approximately 23% of Writing Emphasis (W) courses in need of revalidation have not yet been submitted for revalidation or removal of the W designation, or are stalled in the CIM workflow. To avoid administrative and advising confusion, we are extending the deadline for approval or removal to the first Assembly meeting of the Fall 2023 semester. At that point, CAPC will act to remove the W designation of any course that is not beyond General Education Committee review in CIM workflow by that date. 

NOTE: No courses have had the W removed at this point, unless the program specifically took action in CIM to remove it by editing the course. CAPC has not removed any Ws at this point. For that reason, all current W courses must be taught as a W course Fall 2023 if offered, even if the program intends to not revalidate the course. Students are already enrolled and the W cannot be removed retroactively, so the course must be taught as a W until the W is officially removed by CAPC.

Here is a link to a list of all approved W courses and their revalidation status. Please check the list; if you still are not sure if your W course needs to be submitted for revalidation, you can reach out to Gen Ed Committee Chair, Karen Mitchell (kmitchell@wcupa.edu) or Writing Across the Curriculum Director, Justin Rademaekers (JRademaekers@wcupa.edu). 

 Please see here for more details about the revalidation.

The current Gen Ed Program, requires that each program/major submit a Gen Ed Capstone Assignment to CAPC for approval, and all sections of the capstone course(s) in that program/major must use the approved assignment. See details here. The deadline for submission was December 31, 2022, but as of 4/25/23, approximately 33% of programs have not yet submitted their assignment for CAPC approval. If your program has not yet submitted the Capstone Assignment, please do so ASAP. It should be submitted in time to make the first CAPC Assembly agenda in Fall 2023. It is critical that programs have their Capstone Assignments approved early in Fall 2023, because completion of the Capstone course, with the Gen Ed Capstone Assignment, is a graduation requirement for students matriculating to WCU starting Fall of 2023. If you are not sure if your program has an approved Gen Ed Capstone Assignment, you can check here, or reach out to Gen Ed Committee Chair, Karen Mitchell (kmitchell@wcupa.edu).

To provide useful information for reviewers at every level as they consider Gen Ed course proposals and the role the course may play in the WCU Gen Ed curriculum, a new "Narrative" form is required for any new or revised course that checks any of the following boxes in the CIM shell:

·       Additional Baccalaureate Requirement 2019+

·       General Education 2019+

·       General Education Pathways

The form can be found linked to the CIM page at submission or here (please be sure to download the file and save to your own computer to complete--do not complete the form in Google Drive or Sharepoint). 

Beginning Fall 2023, any proposal that does not include the new Gen Ed Narrative Form will be rolled back to the preparer.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Gen Ed Chair, Karen Mitchell (kmitchell@wcupa.edu).

The current Gen Ed Program, implemented in the Fall of 2019, includes the requirement of “a universal use of Electronic Portfolios to facilitate students’ thinking across their Gen Ed and Major courses.” More information about ePortfolios as part of the Gen Ed Program can be found here.

All Gen Ed course proposals submitted to CAPC, regardless of reason for submission, will be expected to identify in the syllabus one assessment artifact addressing each relevant Gen Ed goal that students will be expected to upload to their Gen Ed Google Sites ePortfolio (which students create in FYE or first transfer semester). Once the course is approved, it is expected that students will be required to submit the identified artifacts to their ePortfolios beginning the next term that the course is taught. You can find more details here. 

Here is some syllabus language you might use to ensure that students comply with uploading documents to their ePortfolio: "This assignment should be uploaded to your Gen Ed Google Sites ePortfolio."

If you have any questions about identifying an artifact suitable for upload to ePortfolio, please contact Gen Ed Committee Chair, Karen Mitchell (kmitchell@wcupa.edu), or the chair of the relevant subcommittee (member lists can be found here).

Beginning Fall 2023, any proposal that does not identify specific ePortfolio artifacts will be rolled back to the preparer.