Repackaging Norfolk State University's General Education Core for the Twenty-First Century

Accordingly, between 2021 and 2025, Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia, reformed its general education core to address questions of alignment, communication, and justification to participating faculty members and students as well as external stakeholders. This panel will discuss the process and final product, showing how excellence and engagement can be pursued even in a polarized political landscape. Our first speaker will describe the traditional system and where faculty members thought it was lacking in focus, relevance, or rigor. Our second speaker will highlight how the sausage was made—pointing out the obstacles and accelerants along the way. The third speaker will discuss the unexpected delay in final approval in which the president required the rewording and renaming of themes and tracks to appease a "conservative" board of visitors or other external stakeholders who may be allergic to "social justice" or "equity."