Invading the General Education Curriculum: A Step Toward Program Sustainability

1. Invading the General Education Curriculum: A Step Toward Program Sustainability Jessica Jensen, Assistant Professor and Daniel J. Klenow, Professor and Head from North Dakota State University Department of Emergency Management

2. Presentation Overview • Tell the story of our introductory course; • Its role in our curriculum; • How it ended up as a general education course in the social and behavioral sciences category; and, • Suggest considerations if you want to pursue such a course too

3. History of Program at NDSU • Brief, general history • Original orientation/approach to program • Role of course within that perspective

4. History of Course • Original design of course • How course was offered

5. Initial Changes to Course • From EMGT 201: Introduction to Emergency Management to • EMGT 101: Emergencies, Disasters, and Catastrophes

6. Initial Changes Continued… • Change in Content • From government-centric, technical, doctrine driven course to… • Exploration of 3 parallel streams • History of disasters • Evolution of emergency management • Functional areas of emergency management and key concepts • Relationship of streams to one another

7. Initial Changes Continued… • More frequent offerings • From 1 x per year to • Every semester

8. Departmental Shifts • Convergence of three shifts in general orientation of the program led to exploring the possibility of 101 as a General Education course

9. #1: Orientation to Numbers • Campus wide focus on the $ relationship to#s of students in courses and program • Desire to draw more MINORS, majors too, BUT MINORS

10. #2: Orientation to Awareness-Building • Students • Other departments • Administration

11. #3: Orientation to EMGT in Hi Ed • Emergency management as • Broad career area • Distributed function • Emergency management as academic discipline

12. Implications of Shifts • Curriculum • Potential numbers • Potential awareness • Potential societal impacts • Potential impact to program sustainability

13. Deciding to Pursue Gen Ed • Factors considered • Requirements for general education versus current course design • Benefits to program • Additional demands if so designated • Process involved with getting approval • Decision made

14. Process of Pursuing Gen Ed • Learning expectations • Feeling out committee members • Developing application • Initial feedback • Formal submission • Corrections • Revised approval • Future steps

15. Results • Successful • Numbers • Enrollment only limited by size of classroom • Generating awareness • Broader audience • Shrinking proportion of our majors to others in the class • Who we are attracting • Minors, minors, minors • Implications

16. Considerations if Interested • Course requirements to become a general education courses at your institution • The process at your institution including • Steps • Players • Timeframe • Recent approvals • Teaching capacity

17. Broader Potential • Addressing a range of challenges programs experience currently • Majors versus minors and jobs • Numbers • Awareness • Sustainability • Societal impact

18. Questions????????