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Office of General Education SMU in Four Student Academic Engagement & Success Student Academic Success Programs University Advising Center University Honors Program

Undergraduate students incentivized to complete Degree Planner

Yesterday, SMU in Four sent email communications to undergraduate students on the Common Curriculum regarding Degree Planner from smuinfour@smu.edu. Student communications were staggered – with tailored communications being sent to declared major students and pre-major students.  

Copies of the communication is below. 

January 18, 2023 

Dear Students – 

Use the new Degree Planner tool, located on your my.SMU Student Dashboard, to plan your path to graduation! This new tool will help you plan not only your upcoming semester, but all courses you will take throughout your college career.    

All undergraduate students on the Common Curriculum (CC) are required to complete Degree Planner by 03/20/2023. [Declared Majors] As a declared major you will complete your degree plan for all declared degree programs and CC requirements prior to Fall 2023 enrollment to avoid enrollment delays. [Pre-Majors] As a pre-major you will complete your degree plan for all CC requirements (Foundations, Breadths, Proficiencies & Experiences) prior to Fall 2023 enrollment to avoid enrollment delays.  

Complete it early for a chance to win some fantastic prizes! The sooner you complete your degree plan, the more raffles you are entered into. Raffle prizes include $25-50 Starbucks, Amazon, Uber, and Visa gift cards. You can also win SMU swag such as baseball caps, sweatshirts, hoodies, and more! Students who complete Degree Planner by 11:59pm on:  

  • January 27 (Friday) will be entered in three raffles.  
  • February 10 (Friday) will be entered in two raffles.  
  • March 10 (Friday) will be entered in one raffle.  

Visit smu.edu/degreeplanner for help getting started or watch the student dashboard video below

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Faculty and staff communications regarding Degree Planner were sent on Friday, January 13th. As promised, Records Offices and advisors will receive email templates to use to encourage student completion in the following weeks. 

Faculty and staff advisors who have the most students complete Degree Planner by the priority deadline of March 20, 2023 will win a $100 Amazon gift card. 

Any questions, comments, and/or concerns can be directed to SMU in Four. 

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Office of General Education

Student records updated to satisfy Quantitative Applications with ECO 1311

The Office of General Education, enacting the vote of the Council of General Education, has updated 920 student records who have satisfied the Quantitative Applications Proficiency & Experience via completing ECO 1311 – Principles of Microeconomics.

Effective fall 2022, ECO 1311 now satisfies the Proficiency and Experience requirement. After auditing ECO 1311 syllabi from fall 2020 to fall 2022, no substantial differences in the course design and learning outcomes were found by the Office of General Education. Therefore, student records were bulk updated to satisfy this graduation requirement – rather than requesting petitions be completed by students.

Students received the good news with a celebratory email on Thursday, September 22.

If you have any questions about this update or suggest an audit, please contact the Office of General Education at theccmail@smu.edu or call (214) 768-6168.

 

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Office of General Education

General Education reminders and updates

 

 

September 6, 2022

 

Dear SMU Community,

We hope you have had a wonderful start to Fall term.  We are writing to provide you with some additional information about the previously announced re-organization of the Office of General Education.  As you may remember in the Spring of 2022, Dayna Oscherwitz, the Assistant Provost for General Education, accepted the position of Associate Provost of Institutional Planning and Effectiveness and Peter Moore, the Associate Provost of Curricular Innovation and Policy stepped down from his role.  In considering how best to provide operational support for the Common Curriculum (CC), and for the Educational Programs Committee (EPC), in light of these changes, the Office of General Education was moved under Student Academic Engagement and Success, overseen by Associate Provost Sheri Kunovich, and EPC was moved under Institutional Planning and Effectiveness.  General Education assessment remains under the Office of Institutional Planning and Effectiveness.

The role of Assistant Provost for General Education was reimagined into the Assistant Provost of Undergraduate Education and Academic Success.  This role includes operational support of the Office of General Education (student advising, faculty and student outreach, faculty support, advisor support, website maintenance, process improvement), oversight of the University Testing Center, First-Generation Initiative, the Mustang Scholars Program, and strategic support of SMU undergraduate student success including co-directing SMU in Four.

The Council on General Education, which remains the governing body for the Common Curriculum, will, effective Fall 2022, be chaired by a tenured faculty member instead of the Assistant Provost.  We are very pleased to announce that Peter Kupfer, Associate Professor of Musicology in Meadows School of the Arts, has agreed to Chair the Council on General Education for a three-year term.  Peter previously served on the Council on General Education and the Historical Contexts and Creativity and Aesthetics curriculum committees, which wrote the outcomes and rubrics for those components.  He has also participated in the Association of American Universities’ Institute on General Education and Assessment.  Peter also served as a faculty facilitator and assessor during the CC assessment this past summer, so he has a great deal of experience and insight into the Common Curriculum.  In his role as Chair, Peter will work with the Office of General Education to organize meetings, write the agendas for meetings, Chair the meetings, and oversee the writing and posting of the minutes for meetings.

The Council on General Education will continue to make all decisions relative to course approval and fulfillment rules for the CC.  While we do not anticipate structural changes to the curriculum, should the need for those arise, they will be approved through the established process involving Council of General Education Approval, Academic Policies Committee of the Faculty Senate Approval, EPC approval, and where appropriate, full Senate approval and Board of Trustees approval, as directed by the Council on General Education bylaws.

It is our hope that these changes will improve the functionality of the Office of General Education and expand the degree of support it offers to faculty, staff, and students.  We have linked the 2022-2023 roster for the Council if you would like to know who represents your school and have provided our office contact information below.

All the Best,

Sheri Kunovich

Associate Provost for Student Academic Engagement and Success

Dayna Oscherwitz

Associate Provost for Institutional Planning and Effectiveness

 

Office of General Education Contact Information:

Office of General Education (214) 768-6168

Common Curriculum Email; for students on the CC: theccmail@smu.edu

University Curriculum Email; for students on the UC: theuc@smu.edu

Dustin Grabsch, office Blanton 100F, (214) 768-4887, dgrabsch@smu.edu

Lisa Cordoba, office Blanton 102, (214) 768-2229, lcordoba@smu.edu

 

 

 

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Office of General Education

Common Curriculum course search updated with new tags

The Office of General Education updated the Common Curriculum course search with added breadth and graduation requirement tags to the catalog.

The August 29, 2022 update reflects the following tag additions by course:

  • ADV 3305- Writing in the Major (WIM)
  • ANTH 3361- Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS)
  • ARHS 3363- Creativity and Aesthetics (CA)
  • BIOL 3170- Writing in the Major (WIM)
  • BIOL 4110- Writing in the Major (WIM)
  • BIOL 4380- Writing in the Major (WIM)
  • CHEM 4110- Writing in the Major (WIM)
  • CHEM 4398- Writing in the Major (WIM)
  • ENGL 2313- Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI); Writing (W)
  • ENGL 3340- Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI)
  • ENGL 3355- Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI); Writing (W)
  • ENGL 3362- Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI)
  • ENGL 3364- Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI)
  • ENGL 3367- Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI)
  • ENGL 3379-Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI)
  • ENGL 3385- Literary Analysis and Interpretation (LAI)
  • WGST 3370- Historical Contexts (HC); Oral Communication (OC)

Questions or concerns related to the course search update can be directed to theccmail@smu.edu.

Categories
Office of General Education

Updated Common Curriculum Proficiencies and Experiences requirements and rubrics available

The Office of General Education, enacting the vote of the Council of General Education, has published updated rubrics for the Common Curriculum’s Proficiencies and Experiences graduation requirements.

The Council of General Education sought to:

  • Provide consistency across the Proficiencies in terms of the number of hours required for an activity and the length and number of the required reflections
  • Create a standard prompt for each Proficiency, as students often had difficulty understanding what to put in their reflection
  • Add the option of submitting completed work that demonstrates the supporting skills (completed during the activity or course) in lieu of a reflection.

Overall, the Council noted that the inconsistencies in the requirements and the fact that they caused problems for students (and were largely arbitrary), so the Common Curriculum Proficiencies and Experiences were streamlined. The streamlined requirements and updated rubrics are now available on the Common Curriculum website.