Provost’s Encouragement
Laura Lee McIntyre
Thank you for your enthusiastic support for this initiative. We hear it clearly in you calling the General Education Committee Members “visionaries and pragmatists,” and urging us to do better (Friday, August 22, 2025).
Advisor Viewpoints
Bethany Judge, Advisor, Director of Experiential Learning, Undergraduate Education
Your student-first perspectives added to our known set of problem statements in meaningful ways, as you pointed out the credit issues some students encounter. Yours was one of the earliest voices to advocate for transfer students (Friday, August 29, 2025).
Amanda Idema, Assistant Dean, Engineering
You brought to everyone’s attention the administrative and technical hurdles some current general education requirements create for students, as well as how the current complexities in the rules make it difficult to explain the requirements to students and parents (Friday, August 29, 2025).
Kristy Chene, Director of Undergraduate Student Affairs, College of Education
Your comments surfaced the challenges in communicating the value of general education to students, especially our new students. You noted misaligned credits, confusion from so many choices, and duplication as problems others regularly experience (Friday, August 29, 2025).
Value of Data
Bethan Cantwell, Assistant Provost, Institutional Research
Thank you for helping us see into the numbers, the trends over time, and the grades. With your help, the data became useful information to the audience. We especially appreciated you taking us to the IR dashboards and inviting us to your trainings (Friday, September 5, 2025).
In Service to Students
Mark Largent, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education
Thank you for working with the committee as they prepare for the design phase of a possible new general education curriculum. We appreciate how you have helped us explore the opportunities and challenges of creating a general education curriculum that is coherent and consistent while being flexible to evolving needs and the many different needs of our students. We heard you when you told us that MSU and its students need a “consilient curriculum that catalyzes people and prepares them for the future” (Friday, September 5, 2025).
Media Training Overview
Sydney Hawkins, Director of Public Relations, University Communications
You helped us step up our game when we encounter the media or want to share information with our colleagues. Don’t feel pressured, avoid jargon, and prepare for difficult questions was some of your excellent advice. We were left thinking about opportunities, as you encouraged us to do (Friday, September 12, 2025)
Experts in Integrative Studies
Brandy Ellison, Center Director, Integrative Studies, Social Science
Because of your remarks, we are bearing in mind the highly talented faculty who are held to exacting standards when teaching general education content. Thank you for speaking up about the value of high-impact practices, smaller class sizes, and innovative curriculum design and teaching methods from your Center (Friday, September 19, 2025).
Gabe Ording, Center Director, Integrative Studies, General Science
We learned about the essential considerations related to general education, as well as the ongoing changes and moments of innovation over the years. The current mission of CISGS is to foster scientific literacy among MSU undergraduates and strives to innovate year after year. (Friday, September 19, 2025).
Garth Sabo, Center Director, Integrative Studies Arts & Humanities
Some of us were very moved by your passionate depictions of what general education does for thousands and thousands of our students every year, invoking Bela Hubbard current data on employers’ desired skills, and the importance of creativity (Friday, September 19, 2025).
Crystal VanKooten, First Year Writing Director
Grounded in research, first-year writing (FYW) helps students develop ‘writerly’ habits for both budding writers and new Spartans alike through encouraging student expression. By its very nature, FYW is inclusive and welcomes diverse perspectives, while serving as a gateway to student success (Friday, September 26, 2025).
Jeff Schenker, Mathematics Department Chair
Focused on diverse student needs, Math 101 and Math 102 avoids a one-size-fits all approach to general education. As the others also indicated, we heard more about sustainability issues and challenges of large class sizes (Friday, September 26, 2025).
Peer Institution Success with New General Education Curriculum
Randy Smith, Vice Provost for Academic Programs, The Ohio State University
We appreciated hearing your story about what happened at OSU, now in your fourth year of implementation! Your encouragement to be optimistic and stay the course mattered to many on the team (Friday, October 3, 2025).
Meg Daly, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education, The Ohio State University
Your pointers about how implementation and monitoring is happening at OSU helped us see more about what is possible in the future. We heard about navigating course fulfillment, and bookends too, as well as your inventive approaches with credits and themes. (Friday, October 3, 2025)
Some History of General Education at MSU
Cara Cilano, Professor, Department of English
You engaged us with your experiences at MSU and UNC Wilmington. You urged us to do the hard work of defining the purpose of General Education as the GEC sees it, and you featured the Boyer Report and the value of Backwards Design. We were particularly interested in your work in the 21st Century Learning Report that featured High-Impact Practices and a first-year seminar. Finally, your history lesson about our Land Grant mission gave us a new context to understand its importance. (Friday, October 17, 2025)
Another Peer Institution Success
Andy Perrin, formerly Professor, Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Your enthusiasm for this important work was infectious. The “Ideas in Action” themes resonated with the team. The practical realities, unexpected challenges, and necessary compromises you described will help us prepare for our own. Your input about capstone experiences as an often-overlooked strategy will ensure we do not overlook them. We appreciated how you elevated creativity and discomfort as key parts of the curriculum you helped to design (Friday, October 24, 2025)
