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PAGE Year Two Report to Salem State Community IN IT TOGETHER: Sharing in a Recommitment to What Our General Education Program Is and Can Be

For More Information for Students: salemstate.edu/gened For More Information for Faculty and Staff (including reports and supporting documents): Program Area for General Education (PAGE)

PAGE Members for 2024-2026 Prof. Cami Condi (24-25) Prof. Elizabeth Coughlan Prof. Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello Prof. Reva Kasman Prof. John McArdle Prof. Binneh Minteh Prof. Margo Shea Prof. Jeff Theis, chair

PAGE Year Two Report to Salem State Community IN IT TOGETHER: Sharing in a Recommitment to What Our General Education Program Is and Can Be Salem State’s general education curriculum is the university’s value system rendered in pedagogical form. The curriculum is a shared experience for the majority of our students, and it serves to complement and enhance student work within their individual majors while creating lifelong learners and engaged citizens who can adapt and flourish after their college careers. That vital role of the general education program, however, is easy to take for granted or assumed to explain itself. During the past two years, PAGE (Program Area for General Education) has focused on bringing the general education program back on the radar screen by establishing a strong identity as well as creating the conditions to help the university revise and improve the curriculum. This report serves to inform the Salem State community about what our lead faculty have accomplished over the past two years in collaboration with staff from across campus.

Context In 2024, Salem State created the Program Area for General Education (PAGE) to oversee all aspects of our general education program that had been approved through governance in 2013. The program initially was supported through faculty fellows with a focus on professional development in the various Gen Ed categories, especially on the new First Year Seminar, as well as developing an assessment plan and building a vibrant and accessible messaging approach. In the early years, faculty and staff focused especially on developing a transition model and approving new courses through the University Curriculum Committee. After that initial rush of support and communal energy, support fell away until a summer group in 2023 comprised of faculty, staff, and administrators offered a set of recommendations to reinvigorate the Gen Ed. One result of their work was the creation of PAGE. Over the past two years, lead faculty on PAGE have worked diligently to gather information about the Gen Ed as it is, how students and faculty feel about it, and how we can re-establish assessment and recertification processes. This report serves to share with our colleagues across campus what we have learned and what we are doing to ensure that general education is valued for its foundational role in educating our undergraduate students.

Views on Gen Ed: Myths and Realities Through a student survey, faculty teaching First Year Seminar survey, and outreach to academic departments across campus, we confirmed that there are widely divergent views on and understandings of what our general education program is. When asked about particular classes in the Gen Ed , many students voice positive experiences about how the different categories helped them see themselves and the world from new perspectives. But many students also voiced Gen Ed as “something to get done with.” More troubling, we repeatedly heard that faculty and advisors across campus often were the ones telling our students this message. Not only has our Gen Ed suffered from lack of consistent messaging about it, its very structure is a challenge to that messaging. Our Gen Ed is not housed in one department or series of departments, nor has it a fixed number of courses. When we adopted the new Gen Ed , we chose very elastic categories designed so that courses could be offered by all departments, often in multiple categories. This Gen Ed was meant to be a “big tent” of inclusion. As a result, we have many courses in various categories that pervade our academic catalog. This breadth of offerings is an asset as it provides myriad choices for students to pursue their interests. In addition, having courses offered by departments across campus means that Gen Ed is a shared academic enterprise with all departments contributing to the mission. The language which we use to articulate the Gen Ed can be seen as a problem, though. The criteria and goals are written in language by and for faculty to pass through the governance process. The language is not student-friendly. 1

QUEST-Gen Ed: Re-establishing an Identity for General Education at Salem State University To address these challenges, our Storytelling team crafted a brand identity for our Gen Ed to help provide clarity and focus. QUEST-Gen Ed is our new name and identity to help convey the energy and positive learning outcomes of our Gen Ed . Upon completing QUEST, students will:

Question in many ways and in many settings. nderstand your and others’ identities Uand how society and contexts shape them. xplore the world at large and the various Eareas of human activity and ways of knowing. hare by learning to communicate Seffectively with different audiences, using a variety of tools in a range of settings.

Action by putting your knowledge into Take practice on campus, in the community, in your

own life and for a just and democratic society.

We have created brochures, promotional materials and signage with the QUEST-Gen Ed message, and these are and will be available to prospective students and during advising periods. What QUEST-Gen Ed stands for is our Salem State-focused version of general education that is required of all Massachusetts higher education undergraduate programs and is typical throughout higher ed in the United States. A common myth is that a general education program is a liberal arts-based education. While an intrepid historian or literary scholar can trace back from our current Gen Ed to the core liberal arts foundations, ours is much more diffuse. The common elements of logic, communication, math, science, and ethics are “there,” but so, too, are many other approaches to knowledge formation and human development. Our own QUEST-Gen Ed was originally aligned with AAC&U LEAP (now VALUE) student learning outcomes: Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, Ethical Reasoning, Global Learning (Knowledge of Human Cultures), Quantitative Thinking, Inquiry and Analysis, Intercultural Knowledge, Information Literacy, Global Learning, Oral Communication, Knowledge of the Physical and Natural World, Synthesis, Written Communication, Foundations and Skills for Lifelong Learning. As such, far from QUEST-Gen Ed being “something to get done,” it is foundational to our mission of educating students as life-long learners who are empowered to shape their world, work with others, and make that world better. In addition, the foundations built through QUEST-Gen Ed are not secondary to a student’s major; rather, QUEST-Gen Ed and the major work together in complementary fashion as the Gen Ed provided perspectives and approaches outside of the major while the major often reinforces and deploys work done in the Gen Ed in the service of more discipline-specific work. Finally, a strong Gen Ed prepares students not just for their first job but their second and third jobs as their lives, interests, and society change. Another myth about our general education program centers around when and how students complete it. While most students take the majority of their Gen Eds in the first year or two, in fact, only FYS, WI, and OC have specific times for completion—within the first year (two semesters). Courses like the vertical writing model’s WII and WIII are intended to be taken midway and at the end of a student’s academic plan. The rest of the categories have broad leeway regarding when students need to take them. 2

How much choice and agency students have in choosing their Gen Eds is also a source of confusion both for students and, often, faculty advisors. While a student cannot be required to take specific courses in certain categories, SSU’s use of support courses outside of the major can steer students to take specific courses so that they are on-track to complete their major in a timely manner. A Nursing student would be well-advised to take specific science and mathematics courses to meet their SR and QR requirements, for example. But many of our students have much more choice regarding what to take in the Gen Ed than they often realize, and it is our job to help them understand their choices, navigate the myriad courses in each category, and help them be as engaged as possible in those courses. Because both students and some advisors see Gen Ed as a series of hurdles to leap, while others are overwhelmed by the number of choices available in most categories, we observe a pattern where students primarily choose their Gen Eds according two criteria: 1) day/time the course meets, and 2) a short-listed selection of courses that advisors and programs recommend to students during registration. As a result, broad choices and opportunities for exploration have become secondary to time constraints and pressure from academic programs and departments.

Myth-busting Solutions: Having a clear, consistent message about what our Gen Ed is will go a long way to helping everyone understand the rich and curricularly-strong rationale for the program. We also understand, however, that our wide-ranging, choice-driven program is not easy to navigate for students, staff, or faculty. For that reason, we are taking a multi-pronged approach to help. First, as previously discussed, PAGE Storytelling developed the QUEST-Gen Ed identity to help students and non-curriculum specialists make sense of the curriculum. Second, PAGE has been identifying where in the SSU processes people need more clear and comprehensive information about our course offerings. In future semesters, we will be providing comprehensive lists of courses with course descriptions for each category at advising time. We also are working to identify shared topics across categories to help students with specific interests to select courses that appeal to their curiosities. The goals are to make the large number of offerings manageable, and we hope to circumvent the tendency of students to default to choosing courses based on schedule. This is work that is being done with our colleagues in the Center for Academic Excellence. For AY 26-27, PAGE is also piloting modules for First Year Seminar to help introduce QUEST-Gen Ed and planning for academic advising to help students understand what QUEST-Gen Ed is and what their options are. Third, as will be discussed with assessment and recertification, we will be encouraging departments to revisit their Gen Ed offerings. Do they want to update courses? Do they want to drop courses that no longer seem relevant or that they no longer have faculty to teach these courses? Streamlining the number of course offerings will make it easier for students to narrow their choice selections.

Assessment: QUEST-Gen Ed’s “big tent” curriculum presents challenges when it comes to ascertaining whether the institution’s general education goals are being met at the level of student learning. Part of the challenge is that SSU has never really constructed a regular assessment schedule to review student learning outcomes (SLO’s), so that was a major focus for PAGE these past two years. PAGE assessment faculty built out an assessment schedule to review three categories per year and to assess student learning according to the category criteria/goals and to the VALUE/LEAP rubrics SSU matched to those categories at the adoption of the Gen Ed program (VALUE/LEAP are from the American Association of Colleges and Universities—AAC&U). Creating a culture of assessment where faculty and academic departments buy into the process, have a shared commitment to assessment, and where resources are provided has been a major focus for PAGE. This past year, PAGE assessed First Year Seminar (FYS) and Personal Growth and Responsibility (PGR) in-depth through student activities and projects while we also reviewed rubrics used to assess Oral Communications (OC). 3

In addition to assessing student work, PAGE also conducted a review of course syllabi during AY 24-25 of both FYS and PGR to determine how many syllabi make clear their status as Gen Ed courses and articulate the appropriate Gen Ed criteria for their category. To create that shared culture of assessment, we did the following: 1.

Created draft rubrics and shared with faculty teaching in the categories multiple times over the Fall 2025 semester for input.

2. Communicated that the majority of the labor of assessment would fall on PAGE faculty and not on academic departments. 3. Focus the assessment on the program categories and not on individual courses so that departments would not fear being singled out or judged. 4. Commit to closing the assessment loop. That is, whatever findings we discover should inform professional development opportunities to improve courses, or inform recommendations for curricular revision to go to the University Curriculum Committee.

Assessment Findings: 1. Syllabus review. PAGE found that many syllabi do not mention some to all Gen Ed category criteria. For example, only 1/3 of FYS syllabi explicitly mentioned Goal 3, while many PGR syllabi were unclear which three of eight ethical dimensions the course focuses on. a. What does this mean? It could be that faculty who do not include the criteria are still teaching to the category’s goals and building them into student activities, but that is unclear. b. There is a strong chance that newer faculty and part-time faculty may not even know that some of their courses are, indeed, Gen Ed courses. So communicating with department chairs is an important first step to ensure compliance. c. For FYS, we found that many syllabi were lacking in “Goal 3” so PAGE built out professional development opportunities. Most important, PAGE worked with CTI and CTI built out summer course re-design sessions built around FYS. CTI now has a Canvas course template for FYS that is easy to adapt and addresses all of the FYS course criteria. d. Survey of FYS faculty. In spring 2025 former and current FYS faculty were surveyed regarding their experiences and ideas for FYS (45 faculty responded). Survey respondents voiced a concern that there is little consistency between FYS sections. Many faculty spoke to FYS being a course requiring more work and more energy, focus and commitment than other courses that they teach; many faculty have stepped away from FYS for that reason. Faculty report that the three goals for FYS are a lot to load into one course, but there is no consensus what goals to eliminate or take out. Diminishing goal 1 would create more of a “College 101” orientation course, while eliminating goal 3 would create a more academic course. Faculty would appreciate more rewards and incentives to teach the course (smaller class sizes, compensation for time, or other recognition within the department and/or across the university). 2. Creation of Manageable Rubrics. a. The creation of rubrics that incorporate both the attached VALUE rubrics and align with all of each category’s goals clarified for us that categories like FYS and PGR probably have too many goals. PAGE narrowed down the number of goals to make assessment manageable, but one finding is that we should return to category goals collectively and decide whether/ how to tighten the focus (and whether our current students and culture would be better suited with different curricular emphases).

For example, FYS VALUE rubrics are “Critical and Creative Thinking,” “Inquiry and Analysis,” and “Introduction to the Gen Ed.” FYS goals do address these categories while also adding Goal 3’s creation of community and introduction to SSU supports. How many courses are focusing on creative thinking? Not many. In addition, how do we assess Goal 3? How do we offer an academically-focused course that meets the VALUE rubrics and Goals 1 & 2 when we recently have placed more support focus on Goal 3?

ii. In the case of PGR, there are “eight dimensions of personal growth and wellness” of which a course needs to pick three. While this large range keeps the “big tent” spirit of the Gen Ed, it means that student learning in the PGR category differs wildly from course to course. 3. Assessment of Student Work. a. First Year Seminar student artifacts had a very wide scoring range. The wide range is concerning as many artifacts were deemed to not meet benchmark level for academicfocused criteria. More traditional assignments such as book reviews, however, indicate strong critical thinking and inquiry and analysis. As this assessment work is preliminary, PAGE has more questions than answers: Did faculty only volunteer work that related to Goal 3, which professional development has been emphasizing of late? Do FYS faculty not realize that 2/3 of FYS criteria are academic in nature? Would adding a reflective component to assignments help clarify and draw out the academic learning as sometimes final products like PowerPoint presentations do not speak to the learning process. i.

Creating a stronger focus on developing academic habits related to Inquiry and Analysis and Creative and Critical Thinking also should be emphasized as a larger university and national concern is that students graduating high school are needing more work in these areas (not just in supports outside of the classroom but woven into curricular design).

b. In both FYS and PGR, the use and documentation of sources, which is so vital to collegiate work, was minimal. c. For PGR, narrowing down the focus of ethical dimensions would help in assessing artifacts. Especially helpful would be more artifacts that incorporate student reflection so that their own engagement with ethics and personal growth can be captured more intentionally. d. The assessment process for both categories also reveals the limitations of assessing single artifacts without context for assessment. PAGE assessors recommend that future teams consider creating portfolios of assignments as well as capturing related contextual materials to help determine the artifact’s purpose and intent.

4. Recertification Process. The assessment plan only evaluates at the programmatic level, not individual courses. Recertification of individual courses has been the purview of the University Curriculum Committee (UCC), but it was paused because it was not yielding meaningful reflection of course offerings and their effectiveness. As PAGE continues, it will need to help craft a rigorous recertification plan that requires and helps departments to ensure their Gen Ed offerings effectively meet Gen Ed criteria or else revise or drop Gen Ed tags. Any procedure will need to be approved by UCC.

Professional Development: PAGE’s professional development initiatives largely centered around the focus on “The Intentional Gen Ed.” This approach acknowledges that SSU had largely taken its eye off of Gen Ed and professional development was one way to bring faculty back to designing their Gen Ed-certified courses with Gen Ed students and criteria in mind. In year one, our professional development started by making the criteria for each category more easily accessible so that faculty could put them into their syllabi. Then, through a few workshops in spring 2025 faculty were invited to ask “essential questions” of their courses that put the Gen Ed at the center of those questions. The intent was to use backward design to help faculty construct student learning activities and course syllabi that weave the criteria of Gen Ed into student experiences. In year two, PAGE ran two faculty professional learning communities (FPLCs), that built off of the intentional Gen Ed and essential questions theme. Faculty read Paul Hanstedt’s General Education Essentials: A Guide for College Faculty and had multiple conversations with colleagues about curricular design. Along with these professional development initiatives, PAGE also offered several sessions focusing on FYS-related topics that tied back to our survey results from FYS faculty and our syllabus review. A more ambitious support for FYS faculty came through collaborations with the Center for Teaching and Innovation. Funded by the state’s Student Success grant in the summer of 2025, CTI built out a summer course re-design program that wove together FYS goals, established faculty activities/assignments, and put them together into an accessible Canvas course template. CTI repeated this support this past summer. PAGE will want to use assessment results to inform professional development opportunities. Doing so will help “close the loop” so that assessment becomes a vehicle for continuous improvement and support rather than be seeing as punitive.

Going Forward: Our current student population and the world itself are quite different from when SSU redesigned the Gen Ed curriculum in 2013-14. The student population is much more diverse, and a majority of students are first generation college students. They bring different interests, experiences, and expectations to SSU, while still needing many of the same college experiences, opportunities, and skills our students needed over ten years ago. In addition, our national and international cultures have changed, especially in terms of verbal and quantitative literacy as well as socially. It is SSU’s collective task to help QUEST-Gen ED meet the current moment so that our students have a great experience at SSU and are as prepared as possible for their future years.