The Student Senate will be tackling the evaluation of Liberal Education Program (LEP) classes this semester, a major project.
These courses serve as bookends to a student’s education at SMSU. LEP 100 (or First-Year Seminar) classes fulfill the Critical Thinking goal of the MnTC requirements, which are needed to graduate. LEP 400 (or Contemporary Issues Seminar) classes are similar in format, and aim to provide students with a deeper understanding of their education.
“Ideally, we want our students to be thinking about the material, interested in learning, and actively participating in class discussion and activities,” the 2013 First Year Seminar Instructor’s Manual states.
The Senate meeting on Feb. 5 saw a discussion on ways LEP courses could be improved. It was noted that because each course as its own theme, some students enjoy their class while others aren’t relating with it.
While talking with students, Student Senate President Rachael Posusta found that there were no objections to the evaluation of these classes.
“I had students say ‘I love my LEP courses, but there is definitely room for improvement for LEP as a whole,” Posusta said. “The biggest response I got back is that students would rather be in a course in their major than in just another random course.”
An objective of the First-Year Seminar course is to integrate students to the university community so they are more likely to stay at the college. It was pointed out that if classes were redesigned to coincide with a student’s major, they would still need to have this aspect. Senators suggested that all offered LEP courses have the same format for getting students involved with the campus.
The Contemporary Issues Seminar course is designed to encourage students to be creative thinkers. Since the LEP 100 class integrates students into a college setting, it was suggested that the LEP 400 class ease students out of college. This could include visits to Career Services and lessons on buying houses and preparing taxes.
“It’s very helpful to get this feedback,” Faculty Liaison Douglas Simon said. “Faculty are very interested in the continuous improvement model. One of my jobs is to try and facilitate those suggestions back to faculty so they can really understand what those issues are.”
Further discussions of LEP classes are slated to appear on the agenda for upcoming Senate meetings.
