General Education Fall 2025 and Beyond

All of the GE labels and many of the area names were changed. The table below summarizes the changes: 
 

Area 5C note: Area 5C courses must be associated with an area 5A or 5B lecture. The lab can either be a standalone 1 unit course with a 5A or 5B lecture pre- or co-requisite, or the lab and lecture can be a single 4 unit course (3 units lecture, 1 unit laboratory).

Area 4 Note: Students must take area 4 courses from at least two different departments or with two different subjects. Students admitted as freshmen will take one lower division area 4 course that also meets the US History requirement.

Continuing students will see GE and SF State Studies areas in their degree progress reports (DPRs) with the pre-fall 2025 areas and labels. They will continue to be able to search for courses in the online class schedule using old labels and see lists of courses in the degree planner under the those labels. They should consult the front page of their degree progress report to view their GE bulletin year. In addition to using the online class schedule search, they can also reference the bulletin to find courses that meet GE for their bulletin year.

With the removal of area E from GE and the reduction of area C from three courses to two, some continuing students received a waiver for those requirements effective fall 25. Specifically, any active student in spring 25 who had not completed an area E course and who was not enrolled in an area E course in spring 25 had that requirement waived in their DPR. Similarly, a third area C course was waived for some continuing students to effectively limit the area C requirement to one C1 course and one C2 course. Students who have completed two or more courses in just one area of C did not receive a waiver because they still need to complete one course in the other area of C. Students who receive a waiver will see a note about it in the GE area in their DPR.

With the change in the GE labels, this seemed like a good time to evaluate the certification and recertification work that has been going on since the last revisions to GE in 2014. One area of concern was the very long review time needed to get a course certified in GE. The faculty committee doing these reviews found the learning outcomes put in place in 2014 to be complicated, unclear, and, in some cases, not assessable. This made it difficult for proposers to know how to respond to prompts and for reviewers to evaluate their responses, resulting in slow reviews and multiple requests for revisions.

The learning outcomes were revised to be reduced in number and to use assessable language to describe the student learning expected. Faculty proposing a course for GE must explain in the proposal how the course aligns with the expected outcomes within the context of the discipline being taught.

Learning outcomes were revised for each GE area and the four SF State Studies areas. 

All courses already in GE remain in the same area, although the GE labels will change in the bulletin, course catalog, and class schedule effective fall 25. For example, if you have a C1 Arts course, it will now be a 3A Arts course. The old designations are kept in the background so that the course will satisfy C1 for continuing students and 3A for new students entering in fall 2025 and beyond.

You need to update course syllabi with the new GE and SF State Studies labels, names, and learning outcomes. Additionally, you may need to realign your course to meet the new outcomes. Please have this updated starting with the fall 25 semester.

If you have any information on department or school websites that reference GE courses or areas, those also need to be updated with the new GE labels and names. Likewise, plan to update any advising information that reference GE for incoming fall 2025 students. Older materials for continuing students can reference the old GE labels.

Courses in GE are periodically assessed for recertification. At that point, the department offering the course must show how it aligns with the revised learning outcomes and how well students are learning those outcomes to remain certified in the area of GE. Recertification is done by the Baccalaureate Requirements Assessment Committee (BRAC), a Senate committee with faculty representatives from colleges.

No. Courses that are already submitted or being reviewed for GE or SF State Studies will be evaluated against the pre-fall 2025 outcomes with the original proposal, but will receive the new GE label when approved by the committee. However, please align the course with the new learning outcomes when you begin teaching it. The course will be recertified in the future against the new learning outcomes.

Requests to certify a course for GE, SF State Studies, or American Institutions are proposed in the course record in CourseLeaf and reviewed by the Baccalaureate Requirements Certification Committee (BRCC), with faculty representatives from each college.

There are expectations associated with each GE, SF State Studies, or American Institutions course. You’ll find these expectations on the Course Expectations and Learning Outcomes page. Please read them and design the course with these expectations in mind.

In the course record, you will be asked to respond to three prompts for each learning outcome. Answers to these prompts should closely align with the learning outcome; the more focused and specific the answers, the easier it will be for BRCC to determine that the course will fulfill the learning outcome.

The prompts focus on the materials you will use to teach the learning outcome, the activities students will do to develop skills or understanding associated with the learning outcome, and the student work and approach you will use to assess student learning of the outcome.

For each learning outcome, you will be asked to respond to these three prompts:

1. In several sentences, please explain how you as an instructor will provide the foundational knowledge and skills that align with the goals of this SLO.
   • What materials (e.g., readings, lectures, movies, presentations, laboratories, performance techniques) will you provide to students so that they can meet this SLO?
   • Do not replicate your syllabus here, but only include materials directly aligned to the SLO in the appropriate part of the proposal.
2. What specific activities will the students engage in so that they can build the skills or understanding that will allow them to meet this SLO?
   • These might include reflections, discussions, essays, short writing pieces, quizzes, projects, blog posts, laboratory experiments, performances, presentations.
   • Be sure to describe at least one activity and how it aligns with the specific learning outcome.
3. Describe the graded assignment(s) or student work that you will use to assess how well students have met the learning outcome.
   • Be sure to explain how the student work maps to the learning outcome and demonstrates that students have met its goals.
   • Please include at least one example of a prompt or question that you would ask the students to respond to.
   • We do not need your entire assignment instruction sheet or grading rubric, just the section(s) that specifically align with the learning outcome.
   • Indicate how much all graded assignment(s)/activities aligned with the SLO will count towards the final grade.

Two major obligations must be met for courses that meet GE, SF State Studies, or American Institutions requirements. The syllabus must include information about these requirements, and the department must assess student learning in the course when requested as part of the recertification process.

Syllabus Requirements

Courses approved in an area of GE, SF State Studies, or American Institutions must include in the course syllabus:

1. The area of general education, SF State Studies, or American Institutions that the course fulfills, i.e. This course satisfies General Education Area 3UD Arts and Humanities and Global Perspectives for SF State Studies.
2. The university-approved student learning outcomes (SLOs) for each of the areas fulfilled by the course (see learning outcomes section)
3. The activities and/or assignments the students complete to demonstrate they have met the SLOs.

It is the responsibility of the department, school, college, or program that offers the course to ensure that instructors of the course are aware of the GE, SF State Studies, or American Institutions areas fulfilled by the course and that the syllabus reflects this information.

Thank you for communicating to students what they can expect to learn in your course!

Participation in student learning assessment for recertification:

Once a course has been approved for GE, SF State Studies, or American Institutions, it will undergo periodic recertification. The standard interval between reviews is five years. The department, school, college, or program that offers the course is responsible for conducting the assessment and submitting the requested recertification report.  

Calls for recertification will be announced in the spring semester, and departments will engage in that work during the following academic year. Please be aware that anonymous examples of student work may be requested as evidence that learning outcomes are being met. If no report is received for a course, it will no longer satisfy the requirement being recertified.  The department may decide to request certification for the course at a future date as a new request.

Active scheduling required for GE courses:

There is an expectation that courses in GE are offered on a frequent basis for student planning. Courses approved for GE that have not been offered within a five-year period shall have their GE status removed and the course will be deactivated. The department may decide to reactivate the course and request certification at a future date as a new request.

Substantive Course Revisions:

Any course that undergoes substantial revision to titles or descriptions requires reevaluation to retain an existing area of GE.