Goals and Learning Objectives

The Applied Competencies: Areas of Distribution

Within the General Education curriculum are seven Distribution Areas. Each of the Areas is designed to offer courses that develop specific applied competencies. The seven Applied Competencies, which are the focus of the Distribution Areas, are developed in many other courses as well, including the capstone General Education LEH300 and LEH301.

Applied Competencies are the goals and learning objectives of the Distribution Areas. These areas or subjects comprise basic knowledge, the practical results of thinking, communicating, interpreting as applied to distinct bodies of knowledge. There are seven areas, plus Natural Science. There are six basic categories of Applied Competencies:

Applied Socio-Politico-Economic Competencies: To acquire systematic knowledge of individuals, their impact on society, society's impact on them and how individuals are constituted within a social context. Analytical understanding of current political, economic and social structures, issues and relationships, and of the impact of socio-political structures.

Area I: Individuals and Society. Specific Area objective: To introduce students to modes of inquiry and systematic ways of thinking about individuals and their positions in societies. Students who succeed in courses in this area will be able to demonstrate one or more of the following:

Area II: Socio-Political Structures. Specific Area objective: To introduce students to typical modes of inquiry and a systematic way of thinking about the organizations and institutions of society. Students who succeed in courses in this area will be able to demonstrate one or more of the following:

Applied Aesthetic Competencies (literature and the arts): To understand the complexity of texts, their underlying process and structure, and their relationship to the human experience; to appreciate creative/artistic expression in order to participate actively in individual aesthetic and creative experiences; and to use works of literature and art as a basis for phenomenological analysis and interpretation of the human condition, and determine which analysis and interpretation may lead to a truth, some truth, or an approach to truth.

Area III: Literature. Students who successfully complete courses in this area will be able to demonstrate one or more of the following:

Area IV: The Arts. Students who successfully complete courses in this area will be able to demonstrate one or more of the following:

Applied Cultural Competencies: To analyze processes, problems, and prospects in diverse cultures and societies by examining social and cultural diversity worldwide and by understanding the historical processes that give rise to diversity; to understand cultural components such as identity, race and ethnicity, nationality, family, history, language, gender, economy, ecology, technology, philosophy, aesthetics, politics, ideology, values, religion, migration, and the dynamism of culture.

Area V: Comparative Culture. The specific objective of this area is to develop students' understanding and appreciation of cultural dynamics from a comparative perspective. Students who successfully complete courses in this area will meet this objective by demonstrating one or more of these abilities:

Applied Historical Competencies: To interpret the past through documents, artifacts, and other primary source materials in order to understand the past and the present in historical context by locating and evaluating traditional and Internet sources, forming an interpretation based on these sources, and communicating ideas and conclusions about major events, ideas, institutions, personalities, and changes of the past.

Area VI: Historical Studies. Students who successfully complete courses in this area will demonstrate one or more of the following:

Applied Competencies in Individual Values: To use systematic ways of conceiving the world through myth, politics, religion, morality, logic, and philosophy in order to develop an ability to reflect critically on systematic modes of thought, and specifically to rearticulate important arguments and modes of thought.

Areas VII: Knowledge, Self, and Values. Students who successfully complete courses in this area will meet this objective through one or more of the following:

Applied Scientific Competencies: To demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving as applied to the natural world; to discuss, present, and write about science concepts; and to analyze and evaluate data and articles published in various media.

Natural Science: General Education courses in the natural sciences have as their primary objectives the development of critical thinking and science literacy. Students who successfully complete courses in this area will demonstrate one or more of the following: