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General Studies Course Proposal Process
Whether you are creating a new course for General Studies designation or your course is due for its 7-year re-designation, or maybe your course is being updated anyway and triggers a General Studies review, the course proposal process has also been changed. When you open Curriculog and populate the proper form, the only thing left to fill out should be the following questions:
- Describe how the course fulfills the General Studies Mission.
- Describe how the course fits the description of the desired General Studies category.
- Describe how the course fulfills each student learning outcome (SLO) for the desired General Studies category.
- Provide an example(s) of a key assignment(s) and explain how it will be used to assess each General Studies SLO for the desired category. (Provide example as upload/attachment or pasted text).
- Click a checkbox to agree that, “I understand that a significant portion of this course (80%) must fulfill the General Studies mission, category description and category SLO’s of the chosen General Studies category.”
Note: The General Studies Committee will take a holistic view of each course (including review of all components, such as course outline, SBLO’s, etc.) to ensure that fulfillment of General Studies comprises a substantial portion of the course (i.e., 80% of course content, assessment, etc.). You may be contacted for further information regarding this requirement.
Please visit the internal Curriculum Sharepoint for resources and Curriculog how-to videos.
Re-Designation of General Studies Courses
7-year Re-Designation
One of the Faculty Senate bylaws states that all General Studies courses will go up for re-designation every 7 years. Therefore, all courses who last received designation in 2012 or earlier were up for re-designation in fall 2019, 2013 courses in 2020, etc. Contact the Director of General Studies to learn when your course is due for redesignation. The deadline is in September of each year due. The good news is, if there are non-substantive changes made to the course, the course will go directly from the department to the Faculty Senate General Studies committee. This should save the college curriculum committees from reviewing extra proposals.
Grandparenting Courses into the Renovated Program
Part of the recommendations approved by faculty senate is to grandparent in all existing General Studies courses into the renovated program, which first appeared in Catalog 2020-2021. Therefore, all general studies courses, regardless of catalog year, should focus on the new student learning outcomes and category descriptions immediately.
| If you are… | Use this form in Curriculog |
|---|---|
| Creating a new general studies course.
|
6. UG General Studies (New or Modification)
|
| Substantive General Studies- Applying for re-designation of an existing general studies course, but plan to change course title, description, prereqs/coreqs, lecture/lab hours, credit hours, schedule type, or grade mode. | 6. UG General Studies (New or Modification)
|
| Non-substantive General Studies- Applying for re-designation of an existing general studies course, but are NOT changing course title, description, prereqs/coreqs, lecture/lab hours, credit hours, schedule type, or grade mode. | 6a. UG General Studies Re-Designation |
| All General Studies + ESSJ | 10. UG General Studies and ESSJ (New or Modification) |
Do the General Studies SLOs have to be the same as my course SBLOs?
No. Student Behavioral Learning Outcomes (SBLOs) are specific to your course, whereas the General Studies SLOs are for all of the courses in that category. In the past, courses would usually explain how their SBLOs map to the General Studies SLOs and that still works with this model. For example, in my Global Climate Change class, I wouldn’t just list the NPS critical thinking SLO, I’d write an SBLO that uses critical thinking through the climate change lens. In an ideal world, we’d include all of these things on our syllabi, so concise, student-friendly language is encouraged. This is an opportunity to refine your SBLOs with General Studies and GT Pathways in mind.
Do I have to accomplish all of the General Studies SLOs in ONE key assignment?
No. You can use as many assignments as you’d like. Describe them in your submission and attach the number of assignments you have described.
Should I feel limited in my assignments because of the future assessment process?
Whether it’s a theater performance, a clay pot, a 20 page paper, an essay question, or a speech, it will work for assessment. The assessment model we’ll recommend includes faculty assessing their own students, so while we’d love for students to have a way to have a file to upload that they could use in a future portfolio, we won’t have multiple people assessing an artifact, just the professor in most cases. In other words, the artifact does not need to be reproducible for assessors because in the majority of cases, the professor will apply the general studies rubric in the same sitting as when they grade the assignment. Don’t feel limited!
Contact the Director of General Studies
Todd Laugen sits as an Ex-Officio member of the Faculty Senate General Studies Committee and can help answer questions related to Curriculog and proposals
Mailing Address:
Metropolitan State University of Denver
General Studies Program
Campus Box 27
P.O. Box 173362
Denver, CO 80217-3362