The Quest to Educate Students
The Quest to Educate Students
Date: 25 September 2013 (Wednesday)
Speaker: Prof. Norman Jones (Professor, Utah State University)
Language: English
Prof. Norm Jones has been involved in teaching general education at Utah State University since 1978; since 1981 he has served on general education committees. He has lived through three major General Education reforms at his University, and since the late 1990s he has been administering one and coordinating the GE programs in the Utah System of Higher Education. If he has learned anything, it is that teachers are the key to good general education. Only they can model it, and only they can ensure its quality. In this GE lunch seminar, Prof. Norm Jones will talk about the quest by the faculty of Utah to ensure their students emerge as educated people.
Speaker’s Bio Prof. Norman Jones is Director of General Education and Curricular Integration as well as Professor of History at Utah State University. He chaired the History Department there for eighteen years. Since 2001 he has been the Chair of the Utah Regents’ General Education Task Force, leading Utah’s efforts to improve general education’s assessment, transfer and articulation through faculty interaction. Every year for sixteen years he has organized the Utah System of Higher Education’s “What is an Educated Person?” conference on General Education issues. Under his leadership, Utah became a LEAP (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) State with the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU). He is deeply involved in “Tuning USA” and sits on its advisory board at the Lumina Foundation and the Institute for Evidence Based Change (IEBC). He consults nationally and internationally on faculty led curricular reform. Working with the Business Innovation Factory and the Lumina Foundation, he has helped pioneer the Student Design Studio approach to student services and curricular change. He is a member of the Advisory Board of Liberal Education, the magazine of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. In 2012 he was awarded the Jerry Gaff Award for Faculty Leadership in General Education by the Association for General and Liberal Studies (AGLS).
