Propose a class
Select a tab below for information about how to propose a course for either ConnectED's Area of Inquiry, or the racial literacy requirement. Feel free to contact us at gened@vcu.edu with questions about proposing courses.
The General Education Curriculum Committee (GECC) is now soliciting courses to be part of the Areas of Inquiry for Fall 2024. These can include existing courses or brand new course offerings. Courses that are already approved in the GenEd curriculum do not need to reapply.
(For your planning purposes, you may preview the above form as a PDF. Please note: This preview version is informational only. All proposals must be submitted via the online form button above.)
The broad rules and expectations of General Education courses in the ConnectED program are as follows:
- Any unit may participate in general education. During the initial stage of ConnectED, no course prefix (e.g., RELS or SOCY) may have more than four courses in the program.
- All general education courses must be open to all VCU students (i.e., no restrictions to major).
- General education courses should not focus on skills, techniques, or procedures specific to a particular occupation or profession.
- General education courses must be offered at least once per academic year, in either the fall or spring semesters (courses can also be offered over the summer, but not exclusively).
- Prerequisites for general education courses must themselves also be part of the general education program.
- General education courses must fulfill one of the Areas of Inquiry (see descriptions in attached documents).
- Each general education course is expected to address two to four of the learning goals. All general education courses must participate in the assessment organized by the General Education Assessment Committee.
- General education courses cannot also serve as core requirements of a major. Units wishing to offer courses as general education will have to choose to remove them as a core major requirement where applicable.
For courses to be considered for designation as a general education course in the Fall 2024 Bulletin, submissions must be received by the GECC no later than September 15, 2023.
Process
The GECC will review courses for inclusion in the general education program during the spring and early fall semester. Courses will be accepted, held for additional information or queries, or rejected; in all cases the committee may provide additional feedback or suggestions to the submitting unit.
After approval by GECC, all general education courses will still have to be submitted through the standard CAT/CIM workflow in order to have general education tags and attributes attached to courses for catalog and DegreeWorks processing. A general education section has been added to the course submission form which allows units to specify (a) if the course is currently part of the general education program, (b) what area of inquiry the course fulfills, and (c) which breadth of knowledge (when applicable) the course fulfills.
The General Education Curriculum Committee will let units know when to begin this process as part of the course approval process.
Questions?
A representative of the committee would be happy to meet with your unit to discuss the program or the process. Please contact us at gened@vcu.edu.