RADFORD -- Radford University's faculty senate has overwhelmingly approved a framework and a timeline for a new general education program -- courses that define the skills and knowledge the university believes educated people should share. Both motions passed by margins of more than 3-to-1 Thursday.

Radford University has been working toward redefining its version of general education since August, when the board of visitors decreed that the core curriculum -- about 40 percent of the university's courses -- will be overhauled and general education requirements will decrease from 50 hours of study to 42. While such overhauls are happening across the country, few if any are moving as quickly as Radford. The board originally set a one-year deadline for a process that generally takes three to four years.

Provost Wil Stanton told a board committee last month that Radford had accomplished as much since November as some universities do in two or three years. Though they haven't voted on it yet, the board seems willing to extend its deadline by a year.

The faculty's General Education Curriculum Committee recommended the extension, pointing out that some deadlines for 2008 implementation have already passed. To get in the undergraduate catalogue for fall, the new system would have had to have been ready Nov. 1.

The faculty and staff began arranging fall class schedules in mid-November. Fall registration begins in March.

In addition, as Stanton told the committee, renovations that are taking 17 classrooms off line would make it impossible to accommodate classes for the 5,000 students who will still be under the old system and classes for new students studying in the new system.

But the board is unlikely to retreat further than fall 2009, Stanton told the senate -- at least not now.

So, while some faculty senators called the framework "a pig in a poke" and others argued that the timeline is still too restrictive, most seemed to agree with Richard Bay, acting chairman of the art department.

"Let's move forward," he urged his colleagues. "Make something happen."

The senate voted 34-10 for the curriculum framework and 32-10 for the timeline.

According to that timeline, the proposed changes in general education will be approved at the board's April meeting. That's when the designing of individual classes will begin in earnest.