Criteria For General Education Courses

 

In addition to criteria listed for each area below, please note that the General Education Model has already adopted the following criteria that apply to certain categories:

• All GER courses will attempt to integrate goals 1, 2, and 3 wherever possible. The General Education Committee expects that writing across the curriculum will extend beyond writing for tests.

• Writing I, Writing II, and the oral communication course must incorporate goals 1, 2, and 3.

• There will be limits of 25 students in writing intensive and oral communication intensive courses. This Academic Senate recommendation is subject to the discretion of the appropriate administrator.

Writing intensive courses must be at the 3000 or 4000 level; a lower division course with a prerequisite of ENGL 1551 may apply for certification.  Oral communication intensive components may be part of general education courses or upper division courses; critical thinking intensive components may occur in any course as long as certification is secured.

The General Education Committee recommends that the following criteria apply to all sections of the Model:

• All general education courses must satisfy the goals in a given domain and must be designed for the general student body. Exceptions to this principle include: 1) those courses submitted by departments to satisfy only the writing intensive, oral communication intensive, and critical thinking intensive requirements; 2) courses submitted by departments to satisfy the capstone requirement in the major; and 3) courses approved as substitutes for general education requirements. It is understood that the requirements of general education in a given domain may be met by a substitution of a more advanced course if the course also satisfies the goals for that domain.

• It shall be the prerogative of the department or program to decide which of the courses approved by the General Education Committee in each domain shall be required of its majors.

• Any department proposing courses must offer assurances to the General Education Committee that faculty from that department who teach a general education course meet the minimal qualifications required by North Central guidelines ["hold graduate degrees that include substantial study (typically a minimum of 18 semester hours at the graduate level) appropriate to the academic field in which they are teaching."] The General Education Committee interprets this guideline to mean that anyone teaching in an interdisciplinary program need meet the minimum for only one of the disciplines involved in that interdisciplinary program. This guideline does not apply to writing-, oral communication-, or critical thinking- intensive components of courses offered in general education or the major.

Faculty are encouraged to include in general education courses goals 5, 10, and 12 wherever possible. The development of math skills and exposure to the diversity of the United States and of the world are important enough to merit coverage in a wide variety of courses.

In each of the domains where there are multiple goals to be addressed, the General Education Committee will be looking for a substantive description that is explicity and directly addressed as to how the course fulfills any of the primary goals. When goals beyond those designated as the featured or primary goals of a particular domain are involved, such as in Artistic and Literary Perspectives, the course must explicity and directly address the secondary goal only within the context of the primary goals.

 

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