Proposal’s for changes to Ohio State’s general education curriculum came up at the Academic and Student Affairs Committeee meeting Friday.

The undergraduate population is increasingly well-prepared and has higher aspirations, but is dissatisfied with the current general education curriculum requirements Barbara Snyder, executive vice president and provost said.

A committee chaired by Brian McHale, professor of English, is reviewing undergraduate education, such as diversity, interdisciplinary, research and outreach and the increased preparation level of the undergraduate students.

The McHale Committee found that the GEC is out of step with today’s better-prepared student body and does not lead to a coherent educational experience. Guiding principles for the GEC reform are coherence, flexibility, oversight and transparency, Snyder said:

• Coherence recommendations are to encourage minors and double majors. They will also institute freshman clusters, Snyder said.

• Recommendations for flexibility provide more scope for student choice and allow minors, double majors and alternative experiences to help satisfy non-major requirements, she said.

• Oversight recommendations would establish a university-wide committee to oversee the quality of general education courses, she said.

• Transparency recommendations would redesign the GEC Web site and reorganize the current category structure, Snyder said.

In addition, the number of credit hours required for graduation could be reduced from 191 to 180 hours, which will better align OSU’s requirements with those of other institutions across the country, she said.

Snyder also said there is still a discussion of OSU switching from the quarter system to a semester system.

“We need to have a new student information system in place to accommodate a switch from quarters to semesters,” Snyder said. “The new (student information system) will not be fully operational until fall of 2009 so we would not be able to implement any change from quarters to semesters until the fall of 2010 at the earliest.”

A formal proposal to move from quarters to semesters would need to be developed after a study of the impact on faculty, staff and students and the fiscal impact. The last time such a study took place, it involved soliciting opinions from faculty, staff and students, Snyder said.

Such a proposal would need to go through the appropriate governing processes and ultimately be approved by the University Senate and the Board of Trustees.

“There is no active proposal to move from quarters to semesters at the present time,” she said.

Also presented at the meeting was an update on the Recreation and Physical Activity Center.

J. Michael Dunn, director of Recreational Sports, said Phase I of the RPAC opened Aug. 29 and Phase II is currently under construction and is planned to open during winter quarter 2007.

The McCorkle Aquatic Center is the largest body of water for intercollegiate athletics, Miechelle Willis, spokeperson for OSU Athletics said.

OSU will play host to swimming and diving competitions in the coming years. The Big Ten Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships will be at the McCorkle Aquatic Center in February 2006. Future competitions hosted at the McCorkle Aquatic Center include the NCAA championship qualifying competition for swimming and diving, the 2007 Big Ten Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships and the 2008 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.

Other general recommendations approved at the meeting were the establishment of the Department of Biomedical Engineering; renaming the school of natural resources to the school of environment and natural resources, and the approval for the use of “center” for the “Center for Critical Care” and the “Center for Personalized Health.”  

The committee also asked for the approval to establish regular clinical-track faculty in the Fisher College of Business and approval of the amendment stating the number of graduate faculty on the research and graduate studies council be raised from 17 to 18.