Continuing with the general education requirement revisions, the University Senate passed the second motion establishing a GE V at its meeting Tuesday.

The new category, entitled “University Wide General Education,” will allow students to take up to six credits from the Category V courses.

Courses that cross GE categories and courses offered by the College of Professional Studies and College of Business (except courses with the IDIS prefix) will be listed under the General Education V category, as the motion states.

Student Senate’s Academic Affairs Commission Director Craig Smith spoke in support of the motion.

“Students will be allowed to explore options in the College of Business and College of Professional Studies,” Smith said. “Undeclared students should be able to look at, for example, nursing classes.”

It is now up to the College of Business and the four schools within the College of Professional Studies to decide which of their courses should be considered for GE Category V, University Senate Chair Susan Harrison said.

Currently, those courses would be voted on by the Curriculum Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences.

However, if motion three of the GE revisions passes at Tuesday’s University Senate meeting, a “University-wide GE Committee” would be created to review the courses offered in Category V, Harrison said.

Speaking for the motion, Senator Kent Syverson said that the committee will deny classes that shouldn’t be in the new category.

“It is in our own best interest to have the strongest general education program here at Eau Claire,” he said.

The GE requirement revisions came up when Provost and Vice Chancellor Ron Satz and department chairs began working on issues relating to course availability and degree requirements in 2000.

Since then, working groups were formed – some of which dealt with the GE Program.

A working group then submitted their proposals for changes in the GE program to the Academic Policies Committee spring 2001.

The five motions created from their proposals are what have been presented to the University Senate. Motion three, along with motions four and five will be debated and voted on at the April 30 meeting.