WSU is beginning a six-month self-examination of its antiquated general education program.

The General Education Visioning Committee is looking at ways to make the GER program more coherent and relevant. The program hasn’t been significantly updated in about 20 years, said Mary Wack, vice provost of undergraduate education and a committee member.

The committee’s report is due to Provost Warwick Bayly on April 1. Its work is part of the Academic Affairs Program Prioritization process, which is streamlining the university’s academic offerings.

Before defining specific GER goals, the committee is researching what general education means for WSU and how the program fits into the university’s goals for undergraduates, committee chairwoman Carol Ivory said. The committee also is figuring out how to best gather feedback from faculty and students.

“We’re just at the beginning,” she said. “We want to know what are the ultimate goals before we tinker with anything. It’s a huge process.” Though the goals aren’t yet specific, Ivory said the committee will work to make the GER program less complicated.

For example, the alphabet soup of key requirements, such as the Z for non-lab sciences, confuses those who use the system, Ivory said. This system is used because computers can’t process cross-listed courses. The committee may find a simpler way to circumvent the problem.

Wack said the alphabet system drives advisers crazy. No one can remember what the letters mean.

Wack said the committee also may restructure the Tier III aspect of GERs. She said money and energy for designing the Tier III system ran out before it was complete.

“There’s a lot of confusion on the Tier III requirement and how it relates to the capstone classes in students’ majors. People think they’re redundant,” she said. “Tier III never got the course development the other tiers did. It was just so far down the road that the energy and vision of the package had faded out.” Wack said the committee’s work on general education is long overdue. She said the program should simply cover the most fundamental things faculty members believe students should master. The original program was strong, but it has been eroded by 20 years of budget devastations and shifting goals, she said.

“It’s a different generation of students now,” she said. “It’s time. It’s not OK for faculty or students.” ASWSU District 8 Sen. Michael Gallegos is the student voice on the committee. He said the committee wants GERs to be something more than another box for students to check off their graduation lists.

The committee wants GERs to be something students can buy into and care about, he said.

“They want to make it a meaningful part of the education process,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge.” If Bayly approves the report in April, it will go through the Faculty Senate before any sort of implementation, Wack said. Any changes would not affect students for at least two years and would only affect incoming students.

“That is going to need a lot of conversations,” she said. “Everyone has a stake in the general education program.”