Launching our General Education Task Force

Dear Cal Lutheran Community,

There is a new normal for most institutions of higher learning. As part of the new normal, many students and their families are struggling to discern what type of post secondary education best prepares 21st century learners for the personal and professional changes, challenges, and opportunities that mark today’s world. To ready students for the types of complex issues they will face as employees, community leaders, partners, parents, and more, the collegiate journey must—at its core—explicitly focus as much on how to learn as what to learn; be interdisciplinary in nature, and provide hands-on opportunities to translate theory into practice.

With those expectations, top of mind, I have charged Dr. Jessica Lavariega Monforti, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, to lead a General Education (GE) Task Force. This Task Force will recommend the types of GE modifications that aim to simultaneously address the needs and interests of students while focusing on faculty expectations of rigor, relevancy, scope, and application. As part of governance revisions that occurred two years ago, the Faculty Assembly voted to have this important work led by the College, and the General Education Curriculum Committee recommended a number of faculty to serve as members on this Task Force.

Along with six faculty members, the General Education Task Force includes staff, students, and administrators. Together, they will review best practices, read relevant literature, and craft recommendations to create a new gen ed curriculum. Our current core must evolve into a curriculum that is designed to help students find their vocation and their purpose, become agile thinkers and constructive doers, and live and work as engaged citizens who understand the intricacies and intersections ever-present in today’s global society. Details about this important work can be found in the attached task force charge.

As members of the Task Force ready themselves for this important work, they understand that General Education courses should not be the general or disconnected ones that students “get out of the way” so that they can get on to the “good stuff” in the major. GE courses must be engaging, connected, and relevant ones that get students excited about contemplating and tackling both the enduring questions and the urgent challenges that are fundamental to a liberal arts and science education.

The work of the task force will be guided by data and focused on student learning. Faculty participation and expertise will fuel the fast-paced work. Both Dean Lavariega Monforti and I recognize that the cadence of this process might feel too fast for some and too long in coming for others. A comfortable pace is hard to achieve across the various constituent groups, so we know up front that not all will be happy with the pace we set.

The content, spirit, outcomes, and application of core curriculum are the things about which all of us should care. Hence, we will provide various types of opportunities for diverse stakeholders to actively participate in this thoughtful and structured revision process. If you are called upon to provide data to, visit with, and offer other support to the work of the task force, I encourage you to enthusiastically accept this invitation. We have a solid foundation upon which we are moving. Help us build our momentum forward, we are moving and we want you to be a part of this strong, positive wave of the future.

Lori E. Varlotta, Ph.D.
President