Departmental Decision-Making in the Implementation of a University General Education Curriculum. ASHE 1987 Annual Meeting Paper.

Overview & Synopsis

The context for implementing general education is discussed, based on research at a comprehensive midwestern research university which has a prescribed distribution general education curriculum. Two major contextual factors are identified: prestige is achieved through research and strong graduate programs; resources to support graduate courses and research tend to be generated by enrollments in general education. Two propositions are offered: departments organize and implement general education activities as efficiently as possible primarily to generate resources to pursue preferences for research and graduate programs; and competition for resources becomes competition for a share of the general education enrollments that generate graduate student and faculty stipends. The research involved interviews with department heads and faculty and used the procedure of constant comparison. Course implementation was influenced by the scale of general education courses involving multiple sections. The extent of faculty participation in general education instruction was influenced by the nature of different fields (i.e., well-defined and codified versus not well defined). It is concluded that faculty involvement in general education is primarily managerial and is guided by the need to minimize the time required, given the preference for research. (SW)