The LEC was empanelled by vote of the faculty in October and received its charge from the Provost on 11/9/2012. The committee met for three hours on 12/13 to elect a chair, determine a schedule, and lay out a process to fulfill the charge. In the spring semester, the LEC met weekly beginning 1/23 and continued through to 5/9. Included in these meetings were discussions on the seven recommendations approved by the faculty in spring 2012. The committee also met (via video-conference) with SUNY Provost David Lavallee. Minutes of these meetings will be available within a week on the committee website: newpaltz.edu/lec.
The committee has been at work this semester developing and refining the seven recommendations for revising the College's current GE program and implementing changes to the curriculum based (in part) on the LEAP principles from AAC&U. (For more information, please visit our webpage.) For each recommendation, a subcommittee was formed, which charge was to gather data, query units and/or individuals, prepare a report of their findings for the whole, and to draft a motion for consideration. This was accomplished for all but one recommendation (on Ethical Reasoning), which was remanded back to the subcommittee with specific actions requested (specifics of which are available in the minutes).
On May 9, the committee held a "working session" open to the entire campus community to review these proposals and discuss ideas about how best to implement them. A discussion about the work we have done so far followed. A summary of this discussion will be available shortly. The LEC now will refine or change proposals, and further develop plans for implementation of the Liberal Education initiatives.
Similar to the process of developing the College's strategic plan, next fall we will be holding a number of meetings with a variety of constituencies across the campus community. It is our hope that motions to adopt the proposals will be entertained at the last faculty meeting of the semester.
In addition to the meetings of the committee as a whole, the chair met with specific units or individuals, as per the charge. The following is a list of meetings the chair had Spring semester 2013.
| Date |
Meeting |
Notes |
| 1/30/13 |
Dean of Advising, Collier |
1YS and Transfer issues |
| 2/4/13 |
Assoc. Provost Garrick Duhaney |
Schedule, Recommendations |
| 2/4 |
Dean of Admissions Jones |
Basic information |
| 2/5 |
Director of Student Activities Patterson |
Telephone conversation re: 1YS |
| 2/25/13 |
Records & Registration |
First Yr. Seminar |
| 2/27 |
Assoc. Dean of Students Cohen-La Valle |
1st Yr Sem, transfer issues |
| 2/28 |
Provost Mauceri |
Summary of work to date |
| 3/19 |
Matthew Newcomb (Comp coordinator), Nancy Kassop (chair—English) |
Discuss impact of proposals on Comp program |
| 5/7 |
Stella Deen |
Review of committee work relative to ad hoc committee recommendations |
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Kassel--chair
