In April 2018, the Liberal Learning Council recommended to CAP that a task force be created by Steering to determine whether TCNJ should develop a set of baccalaureate learning goals that would specify what skills and knowledge all TCNJ undergraduates would gain by the time they graduate.
In May 2018, Steering established a task force “to discern faculty opinion regarding the scope and nature of the revision of the Liberal Learning Program and to define parameters for this revision, to engage the faculty in conversation regarding the role of Liberal Learning vis-à-vis the major, and to lead the faculty at large in defining the goals and composition of a revitalized Liberal Learning Program.” (Memo from Steering establishing Ad Hoc Liberal Learning Task Force)
The Liberal Learning task force consists of all members of the Liberal Learning Council and four additional faculty members appointed by the Faculty Senate (for current membership, please see the Shared Governance Rosters). The task force meets monthly on the first Wednesday of the month from 1:30-2:50pm and, if needed, on the 4thWednesday from 1:30-2:50pm.
In Fall 2018, the Task Force conducted a survey of faculty to determine:
- how well faculty feel that the TCNJ undergraduate degree adequately prepares students,
- how extensively faculty would like Liberal Learning revised,
- what additional requirements faculty think should be added to the program,
- what strategies faculty feel should be adopted to ensure that students perceive Liberal Learning as essential to their TCNJ education, and
- how faculty would like to prioritize flexibility and coherence in the revised Liberal Learning curriculum.
At the end of Fall 2018, the Task Force recommended to Steering that its work continue, and in March 2019, Steering charged the Task Force over the course of Spring and Fall 2019 to develop a range of potential curricular models for Liberal Learning and to gather testimony on the models. By mid-Spring 2020, the Task Force is to make a final recommendation to Steering on a model for Liberal Learning.
During Spring 2019, the Task Force drafted a range of models based on the responses to the survey and drawing on the work of the 2017 AAC&U Summer Institute Team. The models were shared with the College community during Fall 2019, and feedback was received on the models through listening sessions with the Faculty and Staff Senates and Student Government, some departments, and some schools and through open forums.