We started talking about what general education is during our first meeting in December; here’s a list of what we briefly said GenEd is:

• foundations
• prerequisites
• broadens
• what will set students apart
• controversy about great books
• how you particulate hands across the curriculum
• writing/WAC
• always local and foundation for lifelong learning
• all that stuff
• old wine in new bottles
• common academic intellectual experience
• aware of drawing on liberal education every day
• what generates the ground specific engagement
• a bit foreign, an opportunity to learn along w/students
• breadth and depth
• requirements that make students informed participants outside of the college, practical applications outside the classroom
• prerequisites and awareness of health care in this part of Brooklyn
• critical thinking and esp. moving from memorization to synthesis
• well-rounded individual w/skills + experiences that have application in the real world
• universal knowledge in humanities, social, natural sciences
• lifelong learning + leading to an informed citizenry
• use your local knowledge to solve global problems
• less important what it is than what it should be: openly, critically, flexibly and creatively about the world
• connectivity and the actions that come out of those connections, gen ed provides foundation
• short: read write think feel; long: motto used to be “to live a life to earn a living”

In our second meeting, we started our literature review, but without a firm definition of general education, in part because the research will guide us to a definition or set of definitions.

For our third session, we would like to ask what questions you have about GenEd in general, at CUNY, at City Tech, at a college of technology, in your class, or what questions you have about our seminar and our project. You can post your questions here in a comment, or you can bring them with you on Friday for further discussion.