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Liberal Studies at IUP: Background and Development

The Appointment of a General Education Revision Committee

In September 1985, the IUP president appointed a committee to review the University's general education core. The "General Education Task Force" consisted of twelve professors, two academic deans, two students, and one student affairs administrator. This committee was charged with establishing goals for general education at IUP, evaluating the existing program's effectiveness in achieving the goals, and recommending necessary changes. In May 1987, the University Senate approved a proposal to replace the General Education requirements with a new Liberal Studies (LS) program. More than 100 members of the IUP community worked as subcommittee members on the new LS program.

Reasons for Change

Significant discussion concerning the existing General Education (GE) program took place at IUP prior to the appointment of this committee. IUP's existing General Education program was nearly twenty years old and a consensus existed that it needed to be modified. The Student Government Association studied the GE requirements and recommended reconsideration of general education in April 1985. The local discussion was advanced by an awareness that concern about the quality of undergraduate education was widespread across the United States. During the two years prior to the establishment of this task force, three major national reports gave focus and impetus to the emerging discussion. All of these reports included a plea for a stronger, more coherent general education program.

The task force's review of the existing GE program concluded that the undergraduate core curriculum could be strengthened and improved. The old curriculum placed much reliance on choice and chance. It was possible for a student to put together a good program, and many students did; it was also possible to end up with an unbalanced one. It was possible, for instance, for students to take all introductory level courses, or to have no writing experiences beyond English composition classes, or to avoid broad areas of study such as philosophy or history, or to leave IUP without any exposure to a culture other than their own. It was also true that curriculum areas were not always labeled to indicate how these areas fit into a program designed to produce broadly educated people.

The task force's final report included certain key features:

• a curriculum outline divided into learning skills, knowledge areas, and synthesis
• a modified distribution of credits and courses to insure that students touch each major knowledge area--humanities, fine arts, natural science, social sciences, and health and wellness
• a requirement for at least one course in a non-Western culture
• a provision for Liberal Studies Electives to allow students to explore and deepen their knowledge
• a writing-across-the-curriculum program to spread responsibility for promoting literacy beyond the English composition faculty and to emphasize to students the seriousness with which the University regarded the quality of written prose
• a new interdisciplinary course emphasizing synthetic thinking skills and designed to be taken by students in one of their final semesters
• a proposal for a faculty Director of Liberal Studies to administer the program and be an advocate for Liberal Studies and a Liberal Studies Committee (LSC) to review course proposals and recommend changes which become necessary over time
• a change in name, from General Education to Liberal Studies, to convey a more intellectual, serious tone and to align the program with language in the University's mission statement

Liberal Studies and IUP's Mission Statement

The IUP Mission Statement (that was in effect when the the Liberal Studies program was assessed by Middle States in 1995) committed the University to an undergraduate education "that balances breadth and depth"; while major programs provide depth, the Liberal Studies component gives breadth. It does so by requiring study in each major area of knowledge--humanities (literature, history, and philosophy or religious studies), fine arts, natural sciences, social sciences, and health and wellness.

The Liberal Studies program, as expressed by its goals and realized in its implementation, addresses several objectives in the Mission Statement.

Table 1: IUP's mission statement and its relationship to the IUP Liberal Studies Program

IUP Mission Statement: "a positive attitude toward learning and intellectual pursuits"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
1. Change of Name from General Education to Liberal Studies
2. Orientation Talks to Students
3. Printed Advising Brochures
4. Orientation sessions for new faculty and advisers to encourage reinforcement in classroom and advising sessions

IUP Mission Statement: "a deeper level of self-understanding"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
1. Goal statement: "a deeper level of self-understanding"
2. Senior Synthesis courses as well as other course work in the humanities, social sciences, arts, and health & wellness

IUP Mission Statement: "a global understanding and respect for people from diverse backgrounds and cultures"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
1. Non-Western culture requirement
2. Criterion for all LS courses: "include the perspectives and contributions of ethnic and racial minorities and/or women, wherever appropriate to the subject matter"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
1. Goal Statement: "Inquiry, abstract logical thinking, critical analysis, synthesis, decision-making and other aspects of the rational process"
2. Criterion for all LS courses: "define and analyze problems, questions, evaluate available solutions, and make choices"
3. Senior Synthesis course

IUP Mission Statement: "communicate effectively"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
1. Goal Statement: "Literacy--writing, reading, speaking, listening"
2. Criterion for all LS courses: "communicate knowledge and exchange ideas by various forms of expression, in most cases writing or speaking"
3. Criterion for all LS courses: "require the reading and use by the students of at least one, but preferably more, substantial works of fiction or non-fiction (as distinguished from textbooks, anthologies, workbooks, and manuals) including, where appropriate, significant primary sources."
4. Requirement of two writing-intensive courses

IUP Mission Statement: "sensitivity to an appreciation of various art forms"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
1. Goal Statement: "Aesthetic mode of thinking"
2. Knowledge Area requirement: one course in Fine Arts

IUP Mission Statement: "necessary skills for success in their careers"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
Although career-oriented skills are primarily the responsibility of the major, Liberal Studies provides a foundation by enhancement of reasoning abilities, writing and mathematical ability, and breadth of knowledge.

IUP Mission Statement: "commitment to public service"

IUP Liberal Studies Program
1. Criterion for all LS courses: "recognize relationship between what is being studied and current issues, thoughts, institutions, and/or events"
2. Senior Synthesis course

Liberal Studies and "Priorities for Pennsylvania's SSHE during the 1990s"

IUP's Liberal Studies revision anticipated the publication of the SSHE Priorities document as evidenced by noticeable similarities between the two, both in intent and language, although the SSHE document retains the name "General Education."

Table 2. SSHE Priorities and its relationship to the IUP Liberal Studies Program

SSHE Priorities: 7-A. Goals for General Education

IUP Liberal Studies:
Virtually identical list of Goals; both SSHE and IUP goals are patterned after AAC's Integrity in the College Curriculum

SSHE Priorities: 7-B. "...all students are introduced to the nature and purpose of a liberal education...."

IUP Liberal Studies:
Orientation talks to all students; printed brochures interpreting the program; advising

SSHE Priorities: 7-C,D. Ongoing review and assessment

IUP Liberal Studies:
Establishment of permanent Liberal Studies Committee

SSHE Priorities: 8-A. Problem-solving, critical thinking, communication skills

IUP Liberal Studies:
Equivalent IUP Goal Statements; Writing-Across-the-Curriculum program

SSHE Priorities: 8-B. "Relationships among academic disciplines"

IUP Liberal Studies:
Synthesis course

SSHE Priorities: 8-C. "general understanding of American society and culture and of at least one non-Western country, culture, or perspective."

IUP Liberal Studies:
Knowledge area courses in humanities and social sciences; non-Western culture requirement

SSHE Priorities: 8-D. "political, economic, social, and ecological global interdependence"

IUP Liberal Studies:
Knowledge area courses in social sciences; some synthesis course sections

SSHE Priorities: 8-E. Foreign Language

IUP Liberal Studies:
No LS requirement; courses count as Liberal Studies Electives [foreign language required by one IUP college and some additional majors]

SSHE Priorities: 8-G. Contributions of women and minorities

IUP Liberal Studies:
Criteria for all LS courses require such inclusion wherever appropriate

SSHE Priorities: 8-H. "sufficient understanding of science"

IUP Liberal Studies:
Knowledge area courses in Natural Sciences

SSHE Priorities: 8-I; 9. Ethical Dimension/Values

IUP Liberal Studies:
IUP Goal Statements; Criterion for all LS courses: "confront the major ethical issues which pertain to the subject matter...."

The Senate's approval of a new Liberal Studies program in 1987 related only to goals and the curriculum outline. The following academic year, 11 working groups of faculty, administrators, and students (approximately 125 people) wrote detailed criteria for courses in each curriculum category; members of the General Education Task Force wrote general criteria that applied to all Liberal Studies courses. These criteria were approved by the University Senate in May 1988 and February 1989 [a revised set of writing-across-the-curriculum criteria was approved December 1992]. Courses must meet these criteria in order to be listed within a particular category. The Liberal Studies Committee approves each course proposal and ensures that these criteria are met.

Course proposals are initiated by faculty, either individually or as teams. Proposals are reviewed by departments and colleges prior to review by the LSC, which submits its recommendations through the University-wide Undergraduate Curriculum Committee to the Senate for approval; LSC recommendations about writing-intensive sections or sections of LBST 499 Synthesis are submitted for information.

In order to ensure compliance with the criteria, the LSC examines the course syllabus, responses to questions, and checklists tailored to the specific curriculum category; in the case of writing intensive courses, sample assignments are also reviewed. Customarily, the LSC meets with the proposer(s) to discuss the course prior to making a decision. Copies of the proposals are filed in the LS office.

Role and Responsibilities of Director of Liberal Studies and Liberal Studies Committee

In addition to their roles in course approval noted above, the Director and the Committee are charged with the responsibility for Liberal Studies policy and for ongoing program review. The Director is also an advocate for the program, an organizer of related faculty development activities, and the day-to-day administrator of the program. The past and current directors of the Liberal Studies Program have also been successful in attracting external monies to support such programs as new faculty orientation workshops, synthesis workshops, cooperative learning workshops, and use of student portfolios for assessment. Other faculty professional development activities supported by the LS Office include workshops on diversity, writing-across-the-curriculum, and gender-balancing the curriculum. The LS Office also cosponsors guest speakers and fine arts productions.

The Director of Liberal Studies speaks to entering students (first year, transfer, international) at orientation meetings and discusses with them the purpose and value of the LS Program. Each student, and each parent attending parent orientation, receives a copy of Liberal Studies and You, a brochure interpreting the program; a separate interpretive brochure is distributed to juniors as they approach the Senior Synthesis course. The Director works with advisers to encourage reinforcement of these messages at new faculty orientation and advisers' meetings. Each approved Senior Synthesis course outline includes an opening discussion of the purpose and value of this course and of Liberal Studies in general. Numerous faculty include similar discussions at the beginning of other Liberal Studies courses. 

Last Modified Friday February 08 2008