Promoting the Public Impact of General Education

The public impact of higher education is often associated with the research and engagement enterprises of an institution, but through its support of career readiness skills and high-impact learning experiences, general education also has the potential to impact an institution’s public communities and constituency. This article reflects on general education reform at a Carnege-R1 and Community Engagement, land-grant university during a period of significant change. In response to the national discussion of general education reform, our university implemented competency-based general education while state leadership articulated its own set of expected competencies for emerging, in-demand career fields. Focused on the learning experience of students to date, this study considered to what extent general education outcomes were integrated into degree programs and whether the university has leveraged on- and off-campus partnerships to support general education learning. The author concluded that five years after implementing a model of integrated learning with its degree-granting units, the university should consider these other potential partners as stakeholders in a learning experience that can be mutually beneficial in fulfilling the public responsibility of educating the state’s future employees.