General Education Council

The General Education Council, a University Standing Committee, will be responsible for the management of the General Education Program at Morehead State University, including, but not limited to, assessment procedures and course management.

Revision Date: Standing committee, initiated April 2009. Revised June 2010; September 2011; November 2011; November 2017; May 2020.

Purpose: To direct and maintain the General Education Program at Morehead State University. The Council will make recommendations to the Faculty Senate and Provost concerning the goals, structure, and assessment of General Education at Morehead State University. Council recommendations must be approved by a majority vote of the Faculty Senate to become policy.

Membership

Non-Voting

• Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education & Student Success (ex officio)
• The Registrar (or his/her designee) (ex officio)
• Director of Assessment (ex officio)

Voting

• Department chair or equivalent I
• Department chair or equivalent II
• President-elect of the Faculty Senate
• Nine faculty members made up of the following groups:
• One representative from each of the six distribution groups in the general education curriculum
• Each representative should teach general education courses on a regular basis.
• Each college should be represented, but no more than two from each college may serve.
• One faculty member each from the three disciplines in core General Education: 1) Communications, 2) English, and 3) Math
• First Year Seminar coordinator (ex officio)

Membership Rules

• Faculty representatives must be tenured or tenure-track faculty. They will serve offset three-year terms.
• The President-elect of the Faculty Senate will serve a one-year term and be responsible for communications between the General Education Council and the Faculty Senate. If the President-elect is already serving on the General Education Council or is unable to serve, the President of the Faculty Senate will appoint a different faculty senator from the Senate’s Executive Council.
• Distribution area membership restrictions do not apply to the First Year Seminar Coordinator and the President-elect of the Faculty Senate.
• Department chairs or equivalents must be from different colleges and will serve three-year terms.
• Any Council member may invite non-voting visitors to the Council to provide advice and input as deemed appropriate.

Membership Selection Process: All faculty members on this council, except the position of President-elect of the Faculty Senate, will be approved by majority vote of the Faculty Senate. In the event the Senate rejects a candidate, the President-elect of the Senate may nominate another candidate for the position.

Department chairs or their equivalents will be selected by the University’s Chairs Council.

The approval process for all members will be completed in the Spring semester for appointment to the Council in the following Fall semester.

Support Staff: The Director of Assessment will facilitate the collection, maintenance, and analysis of assessment collected by the General Education Council.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Council shall:

• Provide recommendations for the direction and supervision of assessment procedures for the General Education Program, as conducted by the Director of Assessment;
• Provide recommendations for the structure and improvement of the General Education Program;
• Evaluate and approve General Education courses in conjunction with the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

Officers: The General Education Council will be co-chaired by the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education & Student Success and a highly qualified faculty member from the faculty ranks on the committee (excluding department chairs) to be selected by the voting members of the Council. The faculty co-chair will not vote on matters before the Council except to break ties. A replacement member will be selected from whichever distribution or core area the faculty co-chair was originally selected to represent to ensure consistent representation across the general education curriculum.

The administrative co-chair and the faculty co-chair shall meet at the beginning of fall semester to outline the long-term Council agenda for the year, including the meeting schedule, and at the beginning of spring semester to adjust Council priorities for the reminder of the academic year (as needed). Further, the co-chairs shall meet frequently throughout the academic year to establish the agenda of each meeting, to be distributed to Council members no later than one week prior to the meeting date. If the administrative co-chair and the faculty co-chair disagree about issues to be presented to the Council and their degree of importance on an agenda (in terms of priority and urgency), then all issues in dispute shall be presented to the Council members and become subject to Council ranking and approval.

Frequency of Meetings: The full Council is required to meet a minimum of once per academic year.

Minutes and Proposals: To be filed with the Faculty Senate, the Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education & Student Success, and the Library.

Support Services: Clerical support will be supplied by the Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education & Student Success.

MEMBERSHIP

The procedure for resignation from a University Standing Committee is written notification to the University Standing Committee chairperson, Faculty Senate secretary, and the faculty member’s Department Chair. In the absence of a University Standing Committee Chairperson, the notification may be sent to the Faculty Senate secretary and the faculty member’s Department Chair.

• Chris Schroeder, Interim Associate Provost, Co-Chair, Ex-Officio
• Kim Nettleton, Director of Assessment, Ex-Officio
• Kerry Murphy, Registrar, Ex-Officio
• Michelle Barber, FYS Coordinator, Ex-Officio
• Tim Simpson, Department Chair 2022-2025
• James Masterson, Department Chair 2023-2026
• Lesia Lennex, Faculty Senate President-Elect 2023-2024
• Annie Adams HUM 2022-2025
• DuWayne Dale HUM 2022-2025
• Jon Musgrave CBT 2022-2025
• Kouroush Jenab CBT 2021-2024
• Robert Boram COS 2021-2024
• Sean O’Keefe COS 2022-2025
• David Long COE 2023-2026
• Mark Graves HUM 2023-2026
• Nettie Brock HUM 2023-2026
• Joshua Qualls COS 2023-2026

FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR AD-HOC COMMITTEE 

• Alana Scott, CCAHSS
• Annie Adams, CCAHSS
• Chris Beckham, COE
• Chris Schroeder, Interim Associate Provost
• Janet Ratliff, CBT
• Kim Nettleton, Director of University Assessment
• Lora Pace, First-Year Programs
• Michelle Barber, Director, Retention & Advising
• Robert Boram, COS
• Tom Kmetz, Librarian and Coordinator of Instructional and Research Service
• Xavier Scott, Director of Distance Learning and Instructional Design