The General Education Program provides the core of what it means to be a well educated university graduate. The goal is to promote human excellence through a broad foundation of skills and knowledge required to realize a meaningful personal, professional, and civic life. The General Education Program is intended to enable students to contribute to and live responsibly in a diverse, interconnected, and technologically sophisticated global community. (GEC 2006)
General Skills and Abilities
- Develop effective reading, writing, speaking and listening skills and be able to utilize contemporary information and communications systems.
- Formulate logical and mathematical reasoning related to various branches of knowledge.
- Acquire knowledge and skills essential to one's physical and mental well being.
- Think creatively, analyze critically, synthesize clearly and act responsibly.
- Develop a critically examined value system and a personal code of ethics.
General Knowledge, Appreciation and Values
- Recognize and appreciate the collective heritage, ideas and values of a multicultural world and demonstrate sensitivity to sociocultural diversity and the interdependence of groups in a global society.
- Understand and appreciate the creativity and imagination expressed in the fine and performing arts to provide a basis for lifelong aesthetic experience.
- Comprehend and value the natural and physical sciences and their impacts on society.
- Recognize and appreciate the inter-relationship between the ideological, sociological and technological adaptive systems and their impact on the human experience and the environment.
- Understand the development and consequences of the behavior of individuals, groups and institutions in the context of major social, economic and political forces.
- Cultivate a historical and political consciousness.
- Recognize the ongoing and connected nature of human experience over the course of a lifetime.
Updated by the General Education Committee and approved by the Faculty Senate: October 2006