Areas of Inquiry
Text & Ideas
Perspectives in the Creative Arts
Analytic Reasoning
The Social World
The Natural World
Physical Well Being
Texts and Ideas
Course Structure: A menu of three-hour courses to be taken from the first year onward.
Learning Objectives:
- To engage in reading, writing and discussion about important ideas drawn from the study of important texts in a variety of areas – including among others literary texts, dramatic texts, sacred texts, historical texts, philosophical texts, and scientific texts.
- To develop capacities for argument, interpretation and aesthetic appreciation through engagement with these texts and ideas.
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Perspectives in the Creative Arts
Course Structure: A menu of three-hour courses to be taken from the first year onward.
Learning Objectives:
- To develop cognitive and affective appreciation for the process and products of artistic creation.
- To participate actively in the creation of an artistic product.
- To reflect on the nature and sources of aesthetic value.
- To develop habits of participation in artistic and cultural events that will lead to lifelong engagement within the creative arts.
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Analytic Reasoning
Course Structure: A menu of three-hour courses to be taken in the first or second year.
Learning Objectives:
- To develop capacities for quantitative and analytic reasoning.
- To understand the centrality of these capacities to the natural and social sciences.
- To recognize the applications of such capacities to matters of personal and public life.
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The Social World
Course Structure: A menu of three-hour courses to be taken from the first year onward.
Learning Objectives:
- To study selected questions about human beings and the social, cultural, economic, and political world in which they are embedded.
- To develop an understanding of the variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods social scientists use to study the social world.
- To develop the ability to discern the social, scientific and ethical dimensions of issues in the social world, and to understand the interaction between a society’s values and its definition of social problems.
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The Natural World
Course Structure: A menu of five hour lecture/lab courses to be taken from the first year onward. Courses not required of science majors.
Learning Objectives:
- To gain awareness of some significant scientific theories and achievements, and to recognize how they are related both to other areas of science and to our understanding of broader societal issues.
- To develop an understanding of the methods of natural science and a capacity to reason scientifically.
- To experience first-hand the scientific process method through discovery-based learning.
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Physical Well Being
Course Structure: A one credit, two contact-hour, pass/fail course selected from a menu of courses devoted to physical and health education and activities, taken any time in the first to fourth years.
Learning Objectives:
- To develop life-long habits of good health and physical activity.
- To increase awareness of the centrality of health and wellness for pursuit of a good life.
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In order to ensure that courses are designed to serve the needs of the general education student, we recommend that courses offered for core credit meet two important criteria:
- they should carry no prerequisites, and
- their primary purpose should not be to prepare students for more advanced work in a particular discipline.
In addition, courses offered under the “Areas of Inquiry” requirement should be appropriate to freshmen and sophomores (i.e., they should be 100 and 200 level courses).