The taskforce to construct a process to overhaul Baker University’s general education system met last week for the second time this year.
Faculty senate organized the taskforce to lay the foundation for a potential revision of the general education program with representatives from several academic departments, the schools of nursing and education and two student representatives. In the meeting Friday, the taskforce discussed the priority of this revision process, how a new general education system could be sustained after its creation and a pending grant from the Hall family foundation.
Ryan Beasley, political science, history and sociology department chair, raised concerns about the eventual general education overhaul being supported.
“It’s really going to be a crushing blow if we spend a lot of money and it doesn’t get the kind of support it needs,” Beasley said.
Beasley said he doesn’t think Baker’s education programs have received the funding necessary to support them in the past. He said he wanted to see a tangible institutional commitment from Baker so the faculty doesn’t have the rug pulled out from under it.
Rob Flaherty, acting associate dean of the college of arts and sciences, said the general education revision is one of the top six priorities of the new administration. Grant Programs Director Terry Manies said she could sleep soundly at night with the assurances University President Pat Long has made to support the program.
Flaherty, who was a guest invited by the committee, went on to address two factors vital to keeping a new program like this afloat: the operational budget and additional funds to keep the program “current, flexible, innovative, to bring in new ideas and give students unique opportunities.”
Flaherty suggested the new $70,000 annual innovation fund announced at the inauguration ceremony as a valuable source of funds. Flaherty also said a dean of general education programs could be created.
The taskforce went on to address Baker’s current efforts to acquire a significant, potentially six or seven-figure grant from the Hall family foundation, Manies said in a later interview.
The money would go toward sending the taskforce to conferences and retreats to spark creativity, paying a manager of the process to work out conference details, distribute information to the rest of the faculty and find consultants and pay for consultants, Manies said. The grant would also help retool secondary aspects of a general education revision, like changes in recruitment and marketing tactics.
In an interview after the taskforce meeting, committee co-chair Marc Carter stressed the importance of reaching a consensus about the process of developing the new general education program, as well as the importance of the new program itself. Because the revision could affect every faculty member, unanimous support of the revision is critical, he said.
“Everybody has to be involved in some capacity, or at least be given the opportunity because ultimately we’re all going to do this, and we’re all going to do it together,” Carter said.