GE for Advisors

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This page is dedicated to our staff and faculty advisors who help CSUEB undergraduates navigate their GE requirements.

This site houses guides, checklists, links, and other resources for your GE advising needs.

GE across the CSU is regulated systemwide, and GE breadth areas and criteria are dictated by and described in CSU Executive Order 1100 ( EO 1100). Further, specific learning outcomes and campus-specific policies pertaining to GE and other graduation requirements are established by CSUEB's Academic Senate and are described in the University Catalog. Staff or faculty advisors are not authorized to render decisions on whether courses meet the criteria and learning outcomes for any GE, Overlay, Code, and/or Writing course. See the GE breadth page for descriptions of the outcomes and criteria for these areas.

If you ever have any questions or concerns regarding GE, Second Composition, Overlay, and/or Code requirements/policies, please contact the Director of General Education Kevin Kaatz (kevin.kaatz@csueastbay.edu). The GE Director welcomes all opportunities to help you help our students and is happy to provide special workshops/presentations/Q & A sessions as needed.

If you want to request a petition/review for GE credit on behalf of a student, please follow the procedures detailed in the following section.

Update on CSUEB's Advising Structure

Freshmen and Sophomore Advising

Incoming frosh are being advised by the Freshmen and Sophomore Success Team (FASST). Students who started as frosh in Summer Session, 2019 or more recently, continue to have their FASST advisor until they reach junior standing, at which point they are handled the same as transfer students (see below). Students who begin at Cal State East Bay as frosh are often referred to as “native students.”

Transfer Advising

Transfer students who started in Fall Semester, 2020 or more recently are generally directed to their major advisors. Faculty who provide major advising should direct students with academic advising questions unrelated to the major (e.g., breadth or University requirements) to the college advising center. Please note that breadth requirements obtained within the major should be handled by the major advisor. For example, History majors get upper division C (formerly, C4) and possibly sustainability overlay within the major. (Students referred to the college may be advised to take a different upper division C course.) The college undergraduate advising centers are as follows:

Business and Economics cbeadvising@csueastbay.edu
Education and Allied Studies hrtkin.advisors@csueastbay.edu
Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences class_ssc@csueastbay.edu
Science cscistudentcenter@csueastbay.edu

Exceptions

Transfer students who started prior to Fall Semester, 2020 or native students who started prior to Summer Session, 2019 who have academic advising questions unrelated to the major should be referred to AACE ( AACE@csueastbay.edu ).
Transfer students who may be eligible for California Promise should be directed to Wendy Herbert.
Students in EOP, Excel, Renaissance, Veterans, GANAS, Sankofa, or PIIA may be referred to their program advisor.
Any student who is seeking career counseling should be referred to AACE.

Introducing “ Who is My Advisor?”

The vast majority of undergraduate students have their advisor(s) listed in Bay Advisor . However, we have introduced a new means for students to connect. Students who do not know who their major or non-major advisor is can now email whoismyadvisor@csueastbay.edu ; it is helpful if the NetID is included. Faculty can also use this email to find a student’s advisor or submit a specific question, e.g., “who can speak with the student about why their resident units box on the DAR is red?” We will provide a response to inquiries within two business days.

Bay Advisor

Faculty advisors are strongly encouraged to put notes from advising sessions into Bay Advisor. Notes are particularly helpful when students change advisors, have multiple advisors, or are assigned to a Pioneer Success Coach. For example, during the summer, most faculty advisors are not available and professional advisors need to be aware of substitutions that have been approved by faculty.

If you are not using Bay Advisor, please contact Bill Irwin ( bill.irwin@csueastbay.edu ) to get set up.

The GE Petitions Process

Overview

All student GE petitions/requests (with the exception of Study Abroad requests) must originate from an academic advisor on the student's behalf.

The following sections below describe what to do if a student wants to have

a transferred course reviewed for GE, Overlay, Code, or Second Comp credit;
Study Abroad courses reviewed for GE, Overlay, Code, or Second Comp credit;
a special exception or substitution for a particular GE or Overlay requirement (including GE breadth area and GE unit requirements);
a special exception or substitution for a particular graduation requirement outside of GE (i.e., the UWSR, and unit requirements for graduation).

GE Credit for a Transferred Course

Because of the system-wide regulation of GE, all CSU's, UC's, and California community colleges (CCC) honor the GE certifications tagged to their courses. This also applies to Second Composition and Code certifications. For example, if a student transfers in a critical thinking course from a CCC that is designated as GE A3 and Second Comp, then the student has met both the A3 and Second Comp requirements at CSUEB (even though, at this point in time, none of CSUEB's A3 courses are certified to clear Second Comp).

Overlays (and UWSR courses) are local (CSUEB-specific) requirements and must be reviewed locally, and this holds for all outside courses, even if they have been tagged as meeting an overlay at the transferred instituion and even if they articulate with one of our own GE courses that carries an Overlay. For example, all CSU campuses have a Diversity requirement, but each campus has a unique set of learning outcomes and criteria, so that a campus' Diversity certification applies only to their own courses that meet these standards--a transferred course that is tagged as meeting the Diversity requirement at the transfer institution may not meet CSUEB's Diversity criteria and will need to be reviewed by the GE Director. Also, if a transferred course articulates with a CSUEB GE course, that course will carry the GE certification of our own course but NOT necessarily the Overlay certification. This will need to reviewed separately by the GE Director.

CSUEB uses the Transfer Equivalency System (TES) as its official database to manage, process, and record all equivalency reviews and articulation agreements with all other institutions of higher education (colleges, universities, programs; public and private; domestic and international). All international and domestic courses not listed for GE or Overlay credit in TES must be reviewed and approved through the Articulation Office and the Director of General Education.

All advisors should have a Staff TES Advisor account. Contact the Articulation Officer (Kyle Burch) at kyle.burch@csueastbay.edu to set up training to obtain TES access. Trainings take about 1 hour via Zoom. Further, you can email Kyle directly with any questions about TES and to request a TES process refresher.

Use the following resources/instructions for submitting requests through TES:

TES Course Review Process (flowchart)
TES Instructions for Advisers and Evaluators

Submit a transferred course for GE review when you think the course is a good candidate to satisfy a GEOC (GE, Overlay, Code, or Second Comp) area, so that any student transferring in this course would receive GEOC credit for this course. If this is more of an exception, then use the Special Exceptions for GE process described below.

GE Credit for Study Abroad/NSE

Students complete the Request for Study Abroad/NSE Course Approval for GE and email the form with accompanying documentation to the GE Office Manager. Students are instructed NOT to ask their academic advisors to determine which courses they should take at their selected study abroad institution. Academic advisors should ONLY help the student determine which GE requirements they have yet to complete and the types of courses that may potentially fulfill them. Students should be encouraged to do their own fact finding on what courses interest them and are good candidates for meeting GE requirements at CSUEB.

The Request for Study Abroad/NSE Course Approval for GE instructions and form are available here.

Special Exceptions for GE

On behalf of their students, academic advisors may submit requests for special (one-time) exceptions, for example:

Course substitution for GE, Overlay, Second Comp, or Code credit for a course that has been previously rejected through TES;
Waiver of the three-discipline rule for GE Areas C or D;
Many exceptions for students remaining on the quarter GE catalog or for students who moved from quarter to semester GE catalogs.

These requests must be emailed to GEpetitions@csueastbay.edu. Requests should include:

Student's name and 9-digit EMP ID or Net ID
Term and year of expected graduation
Specifics of request, including the course substitution(s), where and when the student completed the course(s), the associated GE area(s), or other pertinent information.
The reason for the request, e.g., graduating senior with full load, graduating senior who cannot afford to take an extra course, etc.

The Office of GE and Director of GE will review all cases that are submitted through GEpetitions@csueastbay.edu and will reply through that email with their decision. All approvals will be recorded in the student's DAR (i.e., comment recorded and DAR updated to reflect the change).

Please do not submit GE Petition requests through the Advisor Request System (ARS) in PeopleSoft or through Bay Advisor.
Please do not email petition requests directly to the Director of GE.

Special Exception for non-GE Graduation Requirements

For Non-GE Graduation Requirements

Requests for special (one-time) exceptions for non-GE graduation requirements should be directed to the Dean of APS, Maureen Scharberg, at maureen.scharberg@csueastbay.edu. Such requests include exceptions to unit limits, the UWSR, min. GPA, etc.