A Process Approach to General Education Reform: Transforming Institutional Culture in Higher Education

The call for general education reform in higher education has sounded clearly and consistently, but responses to this call have been varied. Gano-Phillips, Barnett, and the text's contributors believe that many of the institutional efforts have been content focused, and they argue that this fragments the efforts, creating divides between constituencies. Instead, the editors and contributors urge reformers to adopt a process focus which creates a community striving toward a goal together.

In A Process Approach, editors Gano-Phillips and Barnett have put together a definitive collection of essays on the reform of general education programs in higher education, presented much like case studies. The contributors come from large and small institutions and from various parts of the country. Common among all the stories is the emphasis on bringing together all the stakeholders so that all can be represented and heard. Collectively, this group then works with a process approach to reach a general education reform appropriate to and reflective of the individual institution.

As Gano-Phillips and Barnett write in the Introduction:

A one-size-fits-all approach has not proven successful historically. Rather, as campus culture and reform processes are examined in synchrony, we contend that sustainable and substantive curricular reform is more likely to occur.

This book offers readers and reformers paths for examining and encouraging the evolution of their unique campus cultures. And, through that examination, new and more useful models can emerge, resulting in a curricular reform that can be embraced by all.

Susan Gano-Phillips is an Associate Professor of Psychology and former director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan Flint. She co-chaired (with Robert Barnett) the 2005 2006 General Education Reform Steering Committee and served on UM Flint's General Education Design Team from 2006 to 2008. She completed a Fulbright Fellowship in General Education at City University of Hong Kong during the 2008 2009 academic year.

Robert W. Barnett is Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Michigan Flint. Before that he served as UM Flint's Writing Center Director, Writing Program Director, and Writing Across the Curriculum Director. With Susan Gano-Phillips, he co-chaired the University's General Education Steering Committee during the 2005 2006 academic year; during that year, the campus created, voted on, and approved the framework for a new General Education Curriculum.

Contributors: Suzanne Beal, David Brailow, Nona M. Burney, Christopher Dennis, Amy Goodburn, Terry Halbert, Joan Hawthorne, Jessica Jonson, Kita Kean, Anne Kelsch, Deborah Minter, Nancy Mitchell, Priscilla Perkins, Julie Phillips, J. Worth Pickering, Terrel L. Rhodes, Tim Riordan, Stephanie Roach, Kathleen Rountree, Blase S. Scarnati, Stephen Sharkey, Thomas Steen, Lisa C. Tolbert, Kelly Trigger, Dedaimai S. Whitney, David E. Wilson, Stehpen C. Zerwas