In this issue:
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Liberal education: Did U know?
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New resource addresses student conduct concerns
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Student veterans highly satisfied with their One Stop services
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Graduation Planner fixes in place
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February RAC meeting and policy of the month
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Introducing ASR staff
Liberal education: Did U know?
Question: Why were the liberal education requirements revised?
Answer: Across the country, general education or liberal education (LE) requirements are subject to periodic institutional review. The Council on Liberal Education undertook this task after the current requirements had been in place for about 12 years. The two-year review process was highly consultative. The Council drew several broad conclusions from reading and discussions, and from the feedback we received from the University community. First, we concluded that there is strong support at the University of Minnesota for the goals and values of liberal education. Council members heard from faculty, staff, and students who are passionate about liberal education and who think that it is an important component of any degree. We heard that liberal education makes better engineers, better medical students, better citizens. We also heard lots of advice—often contradictory—about how to strengthen liberal education at Minnesota. We came to realize that intelligent and reasonable people can and do disagree about how to achieve the educational goals to which we aspire. However, despite disagreement about specifics, there was a pervasive sense that our standards need to be raised, our implementation process needs to be strengthened, and our communications about liberal education need to be more thoughtful and engaging.
We found no compelling evidence that the design of our current LE requirements is fundamentally flawed or out of line with what other institutions are doing. For this reason, the recommended changes focus on strengthening the existing requirements’ framework. The recommendations reduced the core requirements by one, added a theme of special current importance, sharpened and clarified the goals for the Core and Theme courses, and stated the criteria for the requirements in such a way that the Council on Liberal Education will have more clearly articulated and defined standards. These sharpened definitions should offer clarity to those who are proposing and teaching courses, and when mirrored in course syllabi, they should help students appreciate the special value of liberal education courses.
For more information on the new Liberal Education curriculum or to view the Council’s final recommendations, please visit https://www.myu.umn.edu/public/cle.html.
New resource addresses student conduct concerns
Attendees at a recent meeting of the Registrar’s
Advisory Committee (RAC) heard from Dr. Glenn Hirsch of the
University’s Behavior Consultation Team (BCT). The BCT is a new campus
resource for University professionals with a student behavior concern.BCT is an early intervention tool for addressing student concerns in a positive way. Faculty and staff are encouraged to contact BCT when a student’s behavior is inappropriate or a risk to others. BCT will assess the risk and work with the faculty or staff member to develop a plan for response—typically by reaching out to the student with counseling or academic support—but if a student is unwilling to participate or the situation appears serious, BCT will recommend further action.
Most BCT calls do not involve a direct threat. If you sense immediate danger, dial 911 to alert University Police. For any other questions or concerns about student conduct, BCT is available to help at 612-626-3030.
Student veterans highly satisfied with their One Stop services
Student veterans surveyed in December 2008 gave One Stop a 97 percent customer satisfaction rating, One Stop director Mary Koskan reports. In addition, 76 percent of student veterans found the processing time of their educational benefits with the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to be very good or outstanding.Student comments were also positive: “I am extremely happy with my veteran’s education professionals in the One Stop. I have every confidence in their ability to take care of soldiers and veterans alike.”; “The staff are extremely knowledgeable and friendly.”; and, “The vets’ office does a fantastic job every time I need them.”
One Stop conducted its third annual University of Minnesota Student Veteran Survey to improve its services to veterans. Forty-seven percent of the 441 student veterans contacted completed the survey, providing feedback about their experiences with the Veteran Services Office located in One Stop, and the processing time of their benefits.
One student received an iPod Nano for responding within the first week, and two students received University of Minnesota sweatshirts during the second and third weeks of the survey.
Graduation Planner fixes in place
Several minor issues with Graduation Planner have now
been
resolved:1) There have been rare instances of programs in the "My Choices" list disappearing. ASR business analysts believe they have isolated and fixed this problem, but please report any additional issues.
2) Courses listed in ECAS as term "other" were appearing in Graduation Planner with a term offered of "fall, spring, summer." This led students to the mistaken belief that the course is offered every term. In reality, these courses are often offered only when feasible. Since the best way for students to know when they might plan to take the course is to inquire with the department offering the course, the text in Graduation Planner was changed from "fall, spring, summer" to "Contact department."
3) Adviser information in Graduation Planner now comes from the adviser Web service. This change should be invisible to the student and is expected to improve the accuracy of this information.
4) Graduation Planner will now use the student's and the adviser's "preferred name," if available.
5) For Duluth campus only, the application for graduation message was modified to account for Duluth's additional procedures.
For any questions about these updates, please contact Travis Trautman at trau0001@umn.edu.
February RAC meeting and policy of the month
The next meeting of the Registrar's Advisory Committee (RAC) will be Monday, February 2, in 101 Walter Library from 10-11:30 a.m.
Policy of the month: The February 2 session will feature discussion on the leave of absence policy. Please review the current policy at http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/senate/documents/policy/undergradpolicies.html (see #12) and come prepared to share your department's or college's practices for implementing this policy, as well as typical issues that may come up. Each month a policy will be highlighted at the RAC meeting by Tina Falkner, director of administration for Academic Support Resources.
If you have questions about this meeting or would like to be added to the listserv to receive meeting minutes and important messages for student services staff, please contact Kasi Williamson at will2026@umn.edu.
Introducing ASR staff
Academic Support Resources (ASR) welcomes Phanthachith Koubandonh, aka. Putt, as a counselor in One Stop Student Services. Putt is from Austin, Minn., and holds a degree in journalism from the University of St. Thomas with concentration on public relations, sociology, and English. After graduation, she worked as the assistant director of admissions and then as a student finance administrator at Argosy University. We are very excited to have Putt join our team. Welcome Putt!