Associate Editor's Notes

Abstract

It has been some time and many scholarly conferences and articles since late 70s, when we first began to look at general education more closely. We have become wiser (and more attentive), despite fact that in many institutions of higher education, general educa tion still is part of problem of the commons, which tells us that which is commonly owned is subject to a lack of close attention. This issue of Journal of General Education certainly indicates that general education, when considered as seriously as disciplinary teaching, can produce a wealth of information across every aspect of academic environment. Our contemporary understanding is that educators must have more than content awareness if we are to be effective; we must know about course structures, student abilities, pedagogy, and assessment, as well as have knowledge of institu tion's selection of students. This leaves us with a very full plate indeed; however, we are aided and encouraged in this complex work by faculty and administration scholars who have chosen to do schol arly work in all of these areas. The common curriculum is subject investigated in Five Features of Effective Core Courses by Julie Weissman and Kenneth J. Boning of St Louis University. They open with fact that in fall of 2000, St. Louis University began offering a set of general edu cation core requirements and included an evaluation of objectives with program. This evaluation provided large amounts of valu able information; what Weissman and Boning discuss specifically in their article are [f]ive features of teaching and learning envi ronment that emerged as new program was carried out. Their qualitative study covers creation of community and collaborative learning, students' ownership of learning, interdisciplinary and real world connections, evaluation, and course design to facilitate disci plinary learning. The article also briefly discusses way pro gram itself was developed and integrated into overall University curriculum. The program has received much attention, resulting in broad campus distribution of information through internal reports and meetings, as well as national notice through publication and par ticipation in conferences.