A new vision for Writing, Quantitative and Breadth courses at SFU

Is the university’s General Education program meeting its intended purpose, and is that purpose still relevant?  

These are some of the questions answered by SFU’s General Education Curriculum Review Committee, whose final recommendations were passed by Senate earlier this month. 

SFU launched the committee in 2020 to assess whether the General Education—our Writing, Quantitative, Breadth (WQB) courses model—is meeting current curricular and student experience goals, and to identify how the university might improve the program.

“The goal of General Education is that students come out of SFU with the ability to do the things that a university education is meant to do—reason, articulate dissent and difference, and think in connective ways across disciplines. More and more we see polarization in society. With the help of the General Education program, SFU students will be equipped with the skills to bring people and ideas together instead of pushing them apart,” says committee member and English professor David Coley.

The committee’s recommendations were based on substantial community input. In the initial phase, the committee heard from 6 of 8 Faculty curriculum committees, 21 of 42 school/department curriculum committees, 59 advisors, 132 faculty members and almost 9000 students. The committee then further consulted with the community on the draft recommendations and integrated the additional feedback from curriculum committees, advisors, plus 146 respondents to a survey into the documents submitted to senate.

• See an infographic of the consultation phase.

“I am proud of the extent to which we did everything we could to get the recommendations right through multiple consultations with the SFU’s communities. At the end of this process, we’ve got a document that reflects a lot of hard work and diligence in making sure that our recommendations reflect what SFU wants,” says Paul Kingsbury, committee member, professor and associate dean in the Faculty of Environment.

What are the recommendations?

According to the committee, new definitions of the General Education program purpose and all three course types were needed to clarify misunderstandings around what qualifies as a W, Q or B course, address concerns that some courses may have drifted from their stated purpose and better align the program with SFU’s current priorities. The committee included updated definitions in their recommendations.

In addition, the committee recommended that all General Education courses be re-certified, and that the recertification process be overseen by a centralized, interdisciplinary committee of faculty members.

To ensure this process has as minimal an impact on instructors as possible, committee chair and Vice-Provost, Learning and Teaching Elizabeth Elle has been working with Provost’s Office staff and the Senate Committee for Undergraduate Studies to launch a revised WQB course certification form and process.  

“The previous certification forms asked a lot of very administrative questions that were often very repetitive and took a fair bit of time for instructors to answer. We have really streamlined them, so they are more concise and easier to complete,” explains university curriculum and intuitional liaison director Jill Sutherland.

The committee recommended a recertification process that rolls out over three years, and that the processes reduce the work undertaken within Schools and Departments as much as possible. Courses that are not re-certified after three years would lose their W, Q, or B designation. Re-certification of courses will continue to occur on a regular basis (every five years) to ensure courses continue to meet the expectations of General Education.

The committee also recommends increased support to instructors of W courses and improved communications to help students and other members of the university community better understand the purpose of the General Education program.

Elle notes, “I’m grateful to the committee for their hard work, and to the university community for engaging with this process so comprehensively, especially at a time when many of us were feeling overwhelmed by the pandemic. The university was commended at our recent site visit by the Northwest Commission of Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) for taking on such an important project. It will be exciting to see how General Education at SFU evolves as a result of this work.”