MILWAUKEE, WI – UWM is continuing with its plan to update general education requirements, likely to take effect in the Fall of 2026.
The current proposal of changes is being led by the Vice Provost for Student Success, Dave Clark. The changes would reduce general education credits from the current 21 hours down to 18, provide full portability of Gen Ed. courses between majors and lay out new assessments and requirements for Gen Ed. courses.
“We’ve known for a while that we needed to make [general education] more modern…if you look at peer institutions like Wayne State University, University of Illinois-Chicago…they have distribution arrays and assessment mechanisms that are more like what we are proposing,” Clark said.
Under the current model, passed in 2012, students are required to take general education courses under 4 “buckets,” Art, Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. The Sciences and Humanities require 6 credits for each bucket and only 3 credits for Art. The new proposal would add two new buckets, “Fostering Health and Wellness” and “Global Impacts.” This would bring requirements to 6 different types of courses but lighten the load for each to just 3 credits, including the current 6 credit categories.
With these changes, students would be finished with general education once they complete their 18 credits, regardless of whether they switch majors. This creates confusion for majors such as engineering, which require more than 102 credits for their major and thus require specific general education courses for students to finish their degree. This proposal hopes to get away from that to ensure that students have the option to change their major freely.
Current requirements also include that students take a lab or field-work course along with a class listed as “Cultural Diversity.” These requirements will remain the same under the new proposal.
Cultural Diversity courses have been required by the Universities of Wisconsin as general education since 1989. The official language states the course must be “pertaining to the study of the life experiences of African Americans, Latino/Hispanic Americans, American Indians, or Asian Americans.” This requirement is mandated at the state level but does not include courses about the experiences of women, the LGBTQ+ community, or disabled persons.
The proposal would also require all general education courses to have outside-of-classroom support of some kind. While many Gen Ed. courses already have tutoring available, tutoring isn’t the only option; support such as extra office hours or staying for set times after class will meet the support requirements, but they must be met to be regarded as a general education course.
“It’s up to the instructor…the expectation is that when they apply to have their course included in the general education array, that they will explain to us how it is that students are going to be getting support,” Clark said.
The proposal also hopes to update the assessment mechanism by focusing more closely on student learning outcomes.
“We already assess the courses, but we want to strengthen that a little bit and look at assessment in a more contemporary way,” said Clark.
This contemporary focus is more directed toward the course outcomes, assessing the course based on course-specific outcomes. It also encourages professors to align projects, exams and papers to meet the outcomes of the course.
The new focus on course learning outcomes may force professors to re-write their current courses to ensure they meet the general education outcomes, preparing coursework for these goals.
Clark and colleagues have received student input on the proposed changes, a process that has taken several years. They have met with the Student Association multiple times to gain input and had several students serve on committees within the Division of Academic Affairs.
With the proposal in the later stages of development, Clark hopes to have the proposal passed by the end of the semester. It is currently being reviewed by UWM’s Academic Program and Curriculum Committee, and will later have to pass through the Faculty Senate of UWM.
If the proposal is passed through in May, it will take effect for UWM students in the Fall of 2026. New and transfer students would take the new Gen Ed. requirements and returning students would have the option to opt-in to the new model or continue with the old model.