This article responds to a lead essay by Richard Badenhausen posing current challenges to honors education and requesting solutions. Frost argues that the place of honors in our undergraduate curriculum needs to be rethought in part because general education core requirements are shrinking; accordingly, the NCHC Basic Characteristics noting honors…

Purpose: Higher education institutions increasingly have gained momentum in integrating sustainability into university curricula. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the approval, implementation and management process of the new university-wide, general education requirement in sustainability at the University of Vermont (UVM). The intent is…

The State of Texas started an educational endeavour called the Texas Common Curriculum in 1987 which was structured to ascertain and require that all graduates from Texas institutions of higher learning, who received a baccalaureate degree from a public college or university, would be required to successfully finish the state's general education…

In this essay, I explore the idea that "academic" advisers are "academics" who play a major role in connecting the general education curriculum to the students' experience as well as connecting the faculty to the students' holistic experience of the curriculum. The National Academic Advising Association Concept of Academic…

The purpose of a general education program is to produce generally well-educated adults who can function as informed citizens and engage in the popular intellectual debates of their time. The skills and frames of reference that are necessary for thoughtful, independent opinions are themselves the objects of debate, but there are points of…

This essay examines the current general education curriculum (gec) structure at a large institution where the gec program has been remodeled often to meet student needs. Assessment of this structure has been limited. Faculty and adviser perceptions of the gec's role in the larger curriculum, strengths, areas for improvement, and impact on student…

The article provides a comprehensive examination of the use of ePortfolios to assess and improve the General Education Program in a public university in the southeastern United States. The implementation process, six years of assessment data, findings from the recent reaffirmation of accreditation conducted by the Southern Association of Colleges…

This program profile examines efforts by WPAs at York College, a senior college in the CUNY system, to adapt to externally imposed changes and develop a locally meaningful writing program. 1999 marked the end of remediation at four-year (senior) colleges in The City University of New York. The elimination of developmental writing at CUNY's senior…

In this paper, the authors explore the implementation of the government mandate in Hong Kong to move from three-year to four-year undergraduate degree programs which include studies in general education (GE), through an analysis of policies and activities related to the curriculum reform. While the authors are interested in the substance of these…

The purpose of this study was to describe the structure of general education curricula at baccalaureate colleges of health science in relationship to Bergquist's Career-Based Model of curriculum. Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach, the model was tested by examining whether the curricula were both prescriptive and specific.…

Think of the United States Military Academy and the typical images are of duty, character, leadership, and possibly even regimented conformity. Intellectual liberation, integrative innovation, and holistic development--hallmarks of a liberal education--are not always associated with the public's perception of the West Point experience. Yet,…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Closing the Loop: How an Assessment Project Paved the Way for GE Reform (Joan Hawthorne and Anne Kelsch); (2) Value-Added? Committing to Quality: Guidelines for Assessment and Accountability in Higher Education (David C. Paris); (3) Creating a Cadre of Assessment…

The initiative to revise Texas Christian University's (TCU) general education curriculum was one of the outcomes of an institutional strategic planning process in 2000, the Commission on the Future of TCU. Coincident with this planning process, TCU developed a new institutional mission statement that focused on preparing students for becoming…

Mark Van Doren, the noted literary scholar, once remarked, "The college is meaningless without a curriculum, but it is more so when it has one that is meaningless." Many current critics of undergraduate curricula in America assent to the crucial need for programmatic renewal in our colleges and universities. They bemoan the cookie-cutter…

When the University of North Dakota began working to improve general education, two concerns were recognized. The first issue, which faculty and administrators across campus found immediately engaging, was how to change general education so that it would be a better program, more likely to yield clear student learning benefits. A second concern,…