sent on behalf of The General Education Listening Task Force
General Education Listening Sessions
The General Education Program at Appalachian seeks to provide students with a first-rate liberal arts education. Our goal is well-rounded students with the knowledge and skills important for professional and personal success at Appalachian and after graduation: abilities to think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, make local-to-global connections, and understand the responsibilities of community membership.
As an experience shared by our undergraduate students and faculty, it is important that the General Education Program represents Appalachian's identity. It is also important for our General Education Program to adapt and evolve in response to emerging challenges, changes, and opportunities. During the 2020-2021 academic year, a group of colleagues from colleges across campus, the Student Government Association, and the General Education Program will be hosting campus-wide listening sessions to hear perspectives from the campus community on a range of topics related to General Education at the program level, and to help plan for its future. The previous listening sessions focused on: social justice, diversity and inclusive excellence; sustainability and climate literacy and; logistics, structure and hours. Today, we are pleased to announce the fourth forum which will be an open listening session. The General Education Listening Task Force will be hosting two Zoom Listening Sessions on Thursday, March 25, one from 12:00-1:00 pm and another from 6:00-7:00 pm, to hear your thoughts on General Education at the program level. The Listening Sessions will be recorded and the recordings will be available on the General Education website. We have also developed a brief survey for this specific topic to collect your thoughts on how well the current General Education Program addresses this topic. This confidential survey also includes the opportunity to provide written thoughts on this topic for those who would prefer to contribute to the conversation in that manner or who are not able to attend one of the listening sessions.
Following the March listening sessions, the General Education Listening Task Force will compile what we learned from the 2020-21 listening sessions and make that available on the General Education website. We will then host a final set of listening sessions on April 22 to allow campus to respond to our findings and to provide any final thoughts.
Please make plans to join us during these sessions to help us think about our General Education Program.
Sincerely,
The General Education Listening Task Force
Heather H. Norris, Ph.D.
Interim Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Appalachian State University
B.B. Dougherty
Boone, NC 28608