General Education in an Age of Student Mobility: An Invitation To Discuss Systemic Curricular Planning. The Academy in Transition.

Even as individual colleges and universities work to make their own general education programs more coherent, fewer and fewer students proceed through those programs according to plan. Students frequently say that their general education programs add up to an assortment of fragments to be assembled and then left behind. How should the educational system close the gap between the purpose of general education programs and the absence of purpose students often experience when they take general education courses? That question is the focus of this collection. The first section contains an opinion piece by Robert Shoenberg: (1) "Why Do I Have To Take This Course?" or Credit Hours, Transfer, and Curricular Coherence. Part 2, Continuing the Discussion, contains: (2) Who Wants Coherence? (Marshall A. Hill); (3) Can We Work with Our Legislatures? (Eduardo Padron); (4) What Do Our Students Value? (Rod A. Risley); (5) Define the Role of State Systems (Martha Romero); (6) Leadership Is Essential (Ron Williams); (7) Don't Sacrifice Local Autonomy (John Nixon); and (8) Will We Reform Ourselves, or Will It Be done to Us? (Deborah L. Floyd). Part 3, More Perspectives on Curricular Coherence and Student Transfer, contains: (9) What Do We Know about Transfer? An Overview (James C. Palmer); (10) Accrediting for Curricular Coherence (Carolyn Prager); and (11) Lessons from Adult Learning (William H. Maehl). Each paper contains references. (SLD)