5) What do you think are the barriers to making those changes? (set 4)
Faculty members don't always feel rewarded for teaching General Education courses. Especially junior faculty members are disadvantaged in these courses that have lower-level and less enthusiastic students. The university environment supports Humanities, but other General Education offerings are not as recognized or celebrated.
Under current structures, it is
difficult for faculty to contribute to General Education courses outside of
their discipline because of the lack of incentives, either professional or
personal. General Education
courses should be fun to teach; they aren=t now.
The biggest barriers to change are institutional
history and defense of turf.
Any changes need to be enthusiastically
adopted by faculty so they are willing participants in the General Education
curriculum.
Resources and departmental interests
are the problem; leadership from Academic Affairs must be part of the solution.
Structural elements are problematic; for example, doing major gen ed reconstruction seems almost an overwhelming and time-consuming notion – how likely and realistic is this?
If there are major changes made to Lang 102, this may negatively impact/affect LR
The
need for more resources (especially instructors)