HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY

Hello Colleagues! 

On behalf of the General Education Task Force 100, we would like to thank everyone across campus for sharing your ideas about the general education curriculum. Over the past couple of months, we reached out to and met with every department and program in HCLAS. In addition, we are consulting with schools outside of HCLAS, separate constituencies of faculty, and are in the process of engaging students and administrative units, such as advising. Please be on the lookout for announcements of upcoming thematic listening sessions. If you have any ideas for one, please propose it to the task force! This is a faculty-led project, and as such, we will continue to solicit your input as we go forward in this process. 

You can reach us anytime at genedtaskforce@hofstra.edu 

Coming up, we are hosting two Town Halls, on Wednesday, November 19th, from 1:00pm-2:15pm and Friday, November 21st, from 2:30pm-4:00pm, which will be in the Student Center Theatre with a live Zoom option. 

The HCLAS Executive Committee has charged the task force with three projects for this semester: 

• Conduct extensive research into general education standards and requirements 
• Hold consultations with as many HU constituencies as possible, to hear our colleagues’ thoughts on general education  
• Draft proposed learning goals 

We will present the learning goals at the aforementioned Town Halls, and we look forward to your feedback. Starting in the spring, we will be using the learning goals to steer the development of possible conceptual frameworks of general education programs, in line with the Gen Ed Task Force’s charge. 

We understand it can be difficult to think creatively about our general education in a vacuum given all the considerations and constraints of departments and programs. Many have expressed enthusiasm about a more intentional, streamlined, and relevant general education model – for students, but also for faculty. Some faculty have also expressed worry about any changes to general education requirements. We are taking notes, literally and figuratively, of these concerns. Thus far, across all of these consultations, faculty by and large agreed on common hopes to help our students become professionals who can think critically, express themselves and communicate, who can adapt to technological change, who can act with self-reflection, and who can engage with the wider world they will inhabit. Moreover, we have heard enthusiastic support for the enduring importance of liberal arts both from colleagues within HCLAS and outside of HCLAS, which has been heartening. We look forward to continuing to consult with faculty and other constituencies during this multi-semester process. 

Brenda Elsey, Craig Rustici, and Matthew Smylie (co-chairs, GETF 100)

A total of 113 faculty members responded to a survey created by the General Education Task Force – 100 regarding their level of agreement with five newly drafted learning goals using a five-point Likert scale. Demographics of the sample are described in Table 1 below.

Table 1
Sample Demographics (N=113)

Note. N = number of respondents; % = approximate percent of the sample.

A response of 1 was defined as strong disagreement and a response of 5 was defined as strong agreement. Response counts vary slightly across items due to nonresponse, but all learning goals received a substantial number of ratings. All analyses are reported using a 95% confidence level and are based on the full raw survey dataset.

Table 2
Quantitative Summary of Survey Results by Learning Goal

Note. N = number of responses; M = mean; SD = standard deviation; CI = confidence interval

Overall, the results indicate strong faculty support for the proposed learning goals. Mean ratings for all five goals are well above 4.0, reflecting agreement to strong agreement on average. Between approximately 79% and 93% of respondents selected 4 or 5 for each learning goal, suggesting broad endorsement across the faculty. The Literacy learning goal received the highest level of support, with a mean rating of 4.66 and more than 92% of respondents indicating agreement or strong agreement.

The standard deviations, which reflect the degree of variation in faculty responses, range from 0.82 to 1.08. These values indicate a generally high level of consistency in responses. Literacy shows the strongest consensus among respondents, while Engagement exhibits somewhat greater variability. Although Engagement has the lowest mean rating of the five goals, it remains clearly within the agreement range.

The 95% confidence intervals indicate that the true average faculty rating for each learning goal is very likely to fall well above the neutral midpoint of the scale. None of the confidence intervals approach neutrality, underscoring the stability of the findings.

An examination of response patterns indicates that generalized dissatisfaction is extremely limited. No respondents selected the lowest rating across all five learning goals, and only one respondent consistently selected low ratings across all goals, suggesting that lower agreement reflects goal-specific perspectives rather than broad opposition.

As with any self-reported Likert-scale survey, results reflect perceptions at a single point in time and may be influenced by differences in interpretation of the learning goal language. Diminishing responses to learning goals later in the survey may be indicative of fatigue among participants.

2/13/26

Meetings: The General Education 100 Task Force held weekly, 90-minute meetings.  The Task Force’s three co-chairs met for an hour beforehand to plan the meeting and the Task Force’s work for the upcoming week.  Task Force members formed three subcommittees: one organizing outreach to the Hofstra community, another drafting learning goals based on consultations with the Hofstra community, and a third preparing a survey to collect faculty responses to the draft learning goals and researching recent revisions of general education curricula at other schools.  Some weekly meetings focused on subcommittee deliberations. 

Communication: The co-chairs established an email account (genedtaskforce@hofstra.edu) to receive comments and suggestions.  With help from colleagues in the HCLAS Dean’s Office, they also created a website (https://www.hofstra.edu/academics/general-education-task-force-100/) to inform the University community. They placed links to that website in Faculty Focus and HCLAS Weekly Bulletin emails. The co-chairs also reported at meetings of the full faculty and HCLAS faculty.  They also posted the survey for faculty input on the proposed learning goals. Two reported to the Dean’s Council of HCLAS department chairs, and another began checking in with the University Senate’s Undergraduate Academic Affairs Committee at their regular meetings. Co-chairs also maintained regular communication with Dean Eva Badowska and the HCLAS office.

Consultations: Task Force members consulted widely with various constituencies at Hofstra including: all HCLAS departments, directors of all interdisciplinary academic programs in HCLAS, each Hofstra school outside HCLAS that teaches undergraduates (including the Library), pre-tenure HCLAS faculty, SGA leaders, RHC students, and athletic advisors.  With very few exceptions, at least one of the co-chairs attended each of these meetings.  To foster consistency, Task Force representatives focused on the following questions in these meetings:

• What learning outcomes of a Gen Ed curriculum are most beneficial to graduates from your major/program?
• If you could design a Gen Ed distribution from scratch, what might that look like?
• How could a Gen Ed curriculum help create responsible members of society and prepared professionals?
• How do you hope students use what they’ve learned in the Gen Ed once they have graduated?

Task Force members conducted and reported on at least 46 such consultations. 

Learning Goals: Drawing upon the notes concerning these consultations, the writing subcommittee drafted five learning goals with brief taglines directed at students and parents and more elaborate explanations for faculty.  In consultation with the entire Task Force, the writing subcommittee revised those learning goals, and the three co-chairs presented those revised general education learning goals at hybrid (in-person and online) town halls on November 19 and 21.  After the town halls the co-chairs met with President Poser, Provost Riordan, and Vice President Eads to report on the Task Force and present the draft learning goals.  Based on faculty feedback at those town halls, the Task Force once again revised the draft learning goals (presented in Appendix B of this report) and presented them briefly at the Full Faculty meeting on December 8 and the HCLAS faculty meeting on December 10.  At both meetings, the co-chairs provided colleagues with both a url and QR code linked to a Qualtrics survey that invited faculty to rate their approval of each of the five draft learning goals on a scale of 1-5 and to offer open-ended comments on each.  One hundred and thirteen (113) faculty members completed the survey (86 from HCLAS).  The average rating for each of the learning goals was greater than 4.25.  Early in Spring 2026, the Task Force will review the survey results to determine whether to revise the draft learning goals further.

Research: In addition to preparing the survey regarding draft learning goals, the research subcommittee worked to supplement the excellent fact-finding report presented to the Task Force at the start of the Fall 2025 semester.  That report included an analysis of the general education curricula at Hofstra’s peer and aspirant institutions.  However, none of those institutions had revised their gen ed curricula since the release of Chat GPT in November 2022.  The research subcommittee worked to identify and report on institutions that had recently revised their general education requirements or that had notably revised their curricula in light of the widespread availability of large language models (LLMs).  They are preparing a supplementary appendix to the fact-finding report to document their findings.

Teaching and Learning Conference: To spark conversation with engaged faculty, at Hofstra’s January 21, 2026 Teaching and Learning Conference, the co-chairs presented posters representing our current distribution model (plus high-impact practices as well as the Task Force charge and timeline), a distributive model organized around competencies rather than disciplines, and a more integrative model. The co-chairs were available to converse with colleagues regarding these models as well as the draft learning goals.  Colleagues also used post-it notes to comment on the posters.  

Co-Chairs:

Brenda Elsey (History, Women’s Studies, and Latin American & Caribbean Studies)
Craig Rustici (English and Disability Studies)
Matthew Smylie (Physics and Astronomy)

Faculty Representation

HCLAS, Humanities, Performing and Fine Arts
John Krapp, Comparative Literature 
Cindy Rosenthal, Drama and Dance 
Craig Rustici, English

HCLAS, Kalikow
Julie Byrne, Religion 
Brenda Elsey, History 
Ruth Trumble, Global Studies and Geography

HCLAS, Natural Sciences and Mathematics 
Emma Condy, Psychology 
Christa Farmer, Geology, Environment, and Sustainability 
Matthew Smylie, Physics and Astronomy

Axinn Library
William Caniano, Library Services

DeMatteis School of Engineering and Applied Science
Gretchen Ostheimer, Engineering

Herbert School of Communication
Rodney Hill, Radio, Television, Film

Rabinowitz Honors College 
Bret Bennington, Geology, Environment, and Sustainability

School of Education
Marilyn DePietto, Teaching, Learning, and Technology

School of Health Sciences
Jenny Roberts, Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences

Zarb School of Business
Glen Vogel, Marketing, International Business, and Legal Studies

Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies
Robert Gluck, Graduate Nursing