General Education

In addition to offering baccalaureate degrees, the University aims to provide students with the basic foundations for life-long learning as rational members of society, to awaken the pleasures of intellectual exploration and to elevate aesthetic sensibilities. This commitment to personal development depends on the acquisition and expansion of knowledge, intellectual processes and techniques. The General Education program seeks to realize the following objectives:

•  Objective: To develop and enhance appreciation for the arts and humanities. Relevant outcomes include:
    the ability to engage in literary, philosophic, and artistic expression, response, and analysis.

•  Objective: To develop and enhance global awareness, civic responsibility, appreciation of cultural
   diversity, and historical awareness. Relevant outcomes include: analyzing an issue from the perspective of
   another cultural tradition; taking a public stance that considers the interests of the wider community;
   demonstrating a basic ability to read, write, speak, and comprehend a foreign language; and analyzing an
   issue from a historical perspective. 

•  Objective: To develop scientific understanding of the natural and social worlds. Relevant outcomes
    include: the ability to generate hypotheses and to assess the validity of evidence.

•  Objective: To develop critical thinking and critical reading skills. Relevant outcomes include: defining a
    problem, assembling evidence to support a conclusion, assessing the validity of a sustained argument,
   and analyzing information to uncover underlying meanings, structures, and patterns.

•  Objective: To strengthen writing and communication skills. Relevant outcomes include: developing a
    chosen topic, organizing specifics to support a main idea, using proper grammar, addressing a particular
    audience, and revising and editing to produce focused and coherent texts.

•  Objective: To strengthen quantitative skills. Relevant outcomes include: applying mathematical and
    statistical techniques as a means of analysis within a variety of disciplines and assessing the strengths
    and weaknesses of these techniques of analysis.

•  Objective: To develop computer literacy. Relevant outcomes include: the ability to use computers for
    research, analysis, and expression, and analyzing the effects of computers on society.

•  Objective: To foster personal health and fitness. Relevant outcomes include: the development and
   maintenance of improved physical health, wellness, and lifetime activity skills.