The Faculty Senate Executive Council and the Director of Undergraduate Curriculum together with the Office of the Provost are convening a process to guide and launch a review of the REAL Curriculum and the status of General Education at Radford University on an expeditious timeline between September 2024 and May 2025.
This process aims to identify near-term improvements to the REAL Curriculum that will preserve its successful features and address some of its deficiencies. We hope that this process can begin our consideration of a bridge into a more substantial revision of General Education that might, in coming years, follow the conclusion of the strategic planning process that is also currently underway.
Our goal is to identify steps forward that are actionable, make a real impact on student experience, and are straightforward and minimally disruptive in their implementation. Our goal is also to lay the groundwork for productive conversations about the future of general education at Radford University, which will hopefully both shape and be shaped by the unfolding strategic planning process, by building community and capacity around issues of shared commitment and concern.
The process described here adopts an open style, inviting and including perspectives from as many T&R and A&P faculty and staff as are willing and able to participate. Our hope is to refresh and energize our ongoing conversation as colleagues over the best means of providing General Education to Radford University students. The activities described below welcome perspectives from partners and constituents across our campuses. And this process can be adjusted as we work together to achieve some near-term improvements to the REAL Curriculum as our current mechanism of General Education.
We hope that you will share your perspectives and join us over the coming months in this effort to improve the REAL Curriculum and General Education at Radford University.
This process includes the services of an expert facilitator and coach external to Radford University, Dr. Jennifer Hart of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (see her biography below), who is assisting with:
Each Listening Session will provide a forum in which between 25 and 30 participants will work with Jennifer Hart to identify and share their perspectives about the REAL Curriculum and the purposes and structures of General Education overall. T&R Faculty, A&P Faculty, and Staff who work in relation to the REAL Curriculum and General Education are encouraged to register for one of the sessions. If more registration requests are received than the planned capacity, we can schedule additional sessions as needed during October or early November.
During the November professional development workshop, Jennifer Hart will provide an overview of prevalent models for general education within contemporary U.S. higher education and insights from the Listening Sessions and meetings with campus partners. Dr. Hart will also share her review and evaluation of the REAL Curriculum, recommendations for improvement of General Education at Radford University, and other topics or activities to assist us in considering revisions that might improve our offering and oversight of General Education.
Expected outcomes from this process include:
Dr. Jennifer Hart is Chair and Professor of History at Virginia Tech and works as Senior Scholar emphasizing general education in the Office of Curricular, Pedagogical, and Digital Innovation at the American Association of Colleges and University. Author of Making an African City: Technopolitics and the Infrastructure of Everyday Life in Colonial Accra (Indiana UP, 2024) and Ghana on the Go: African Mobility in the Age of Motor Transportation (Indiana UP, 2016), Hart’s scholarship connects histories of transportation, mobility, and urban development to questions of technology, power, and identity. She is the North American President for the International Society for the Scholarship on Teaching and Learning in History, a member of the Executive Council for the African Studies Association, and a member of the Africa Initiative Steering Committee for the Society for the History of Technology.
Dr. Hart has written about general education for Inside Higher Ed, in “Are We Taking Gen for Granted?” May 25, 2022.
This process will achieve the greatest success if we combine our insights and experiences to develop a clear picture of the REAL Curriculum in its current state, and to consider together what might be possible to improve within this model of General Education. Please share your thoughts through the questionnaire linked below and through your participation in one or more of the activities described below.
Share Feedback
Please share your perspectives about General Education and your experiences with the REAL Curriculum. The questionnaire linked here collects anonymous, briefly stated responses to three questions:
We hope that you will share feedback through this questionnaire and that you will participate in the activities described below.
Share feedback at this link: https://radford.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b1qKFgZbWFSCYTk
Apart from submitting the questionnaire—which we hope you will do!—there are three main ways to participate in this process:
We are holding at least three Listening Sessions to gather perspectives on the REAL Curriculum and General Education, in Radford and in Roanoke.
Each Listening Session will provide a forum in which between 25 and 30 participants will work with Jennifer Hart to identify and share their perspectives about the REAL Curriculum and the purposes and structures of General Education overall. T&R Faulty, A&P Faculty, and staff who work in relation to the REAL Curriculum and General Education are encouraged to register for one of the sessions. If more registration requests are received than the planned capacity, we can schedule additional sessions as needed during October or early November.
The General Faculty and all A&P Faculty and Staff members who substantially interact with General Education are invited to attend a workshop to develop our expertise in general education design and generate ideas for improving the REAL Curriculum.
Facilitator and coach Dr. Jennifer Hart will provide an overview of prevalent models for general education within contemporary U.S. higher education and insights from the Listening Sessions and meetings with campus partners. Dr. Hart will also share her review and evaluation of the REAL Curriculum, recommendations for improvement of General Education at Radford University, and other topics or activities to assist us in considering revisions that might improve our offering and oversight of General Education.
By November 14, 2024, guidelines for establishing a General Education Improvement Task Force will be finalized and introduced to faculty and elections for its membership will open. The composition of the task force will be determined by Faculty Senate in consultation with the Provost and Dr. Hart and will be limited to 7 or 8 members.
Elections will be completed to empanel the General Education Improvement Task Force by November 22, 2024. The group will be charged with recommending appropriate near-term revisions to general education at Radford University.
The General Education Improvement Task Force will convene before the end of the Fall 2024 semester to be charged, and will receive initial coaching from Jennifer Hart to provide consultation on their process and expected outcomes. During January and February 2025. Dr. Hart will provide two additional coaching sessions to the task force and/or will provide consultation to the task force in a manner preferred by its members and as agreed upon by Dr. Hart.
The task force will report its recommendations by February 21, 2025, to Faculty Senate for deliberation and to the Provost for initial review. This will allow Faculty Senate and relevant governance bodies to evaluate and act on the recommendations before Faculty Senate business concludes on May 1, 2025.