New General Education

This topics seminar focuses on developing the knowledge, experiences, and skills helpful for success at UWL, including learning strategies, community building, and academic inquiry. By exploring enduring questions students will learn the purposes and value of a liberal arts education.

• Outcome: Reflect on and apply learning and skills that contribute to success in the first year of college and beyond (Foundations and Skills for Lifelong Learning VALUE Rubric)

Reading and writing are used to effectively communicate ideas and to become educated citizens. These skills courses improve students’ abilities to read and write with clarity, precision, and depth of understanding.

• Outcome: Develop ideas effectively in writing by integrating evidence with clarity and precision (Written Communication VALUE Rubric)

Speaking and listening are used to effectively communicate ideas and to become educated citizens. This skills course improves students’ abilities to speak and listen with clarity, precision, and depth of understanding.

• Outcome: Speaking and listening are used to effectively communicate ideas and to become educated citizens. This skills course improves students’ abilities to speak and listen with clarity, precision, and depth of understanding.

Quantitative reasoning skills are vital for understanding and predicting many personal and societal conditions. Students will develop a habit of mind that includes analyzing, evaluating, and communicating situations logically and precisely. Courses focus on topics necessary to make informed decisions in today’s world such as logic, numeracy, and statistics.

• Outcome: Analyze quantitative data to reason and communicate arguments across varied contexts (Quantitative Literacy VALUE Rubric)

An essential goal of general education is to improve students’ understanding of and sensitivity to cultural, gender, and intersectional diversity and inequality in the United States. All students take at least one course that focuses on systems of oppression that impact communities of color in the United States or specifically attend to gender within communities of color.

• Outcome: Interpret cultural contexts to interact with diverse and intersectional U.S. communities (Intercultural Knowledge VALUE Rubric)

Mens Corpusque (mind and body) underscores the importance of the interaction between physical and mental well-being. Students will gain the knowledge and skills to improve their own well-being through the application of the dimensions of wellness (such as physical, emotional, intellectual, environmental, social, spiritual, occupational) and will recognize that individual decisions and actions impact the wellness of others.

• Outcome: Apply multidimensional wellness strategies to enhance individual and collective well-being in a collaborative setting (Teamwork VALUE Rubric)

The arts represent a fusion of the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual realities of the human condition. Study of the arts leads to heightened aesthetic experiences and deepens cultural understanding. This includes courses that focus on understanding, appreciating, and experiencing the fine and performing arts.

• Outcome: Analyze artistic elements to foster creative thinking and deepen cultural appreciation (Creative Thinking VALUE Rubric)

As the health and prosperity of our society becomes more dependent on science and technology, individuals must be sufficiently knowledgeable about scientific facts and applications to make skilled decisions concerning their use. In these courses, students will learn content and principles within the natural sciences, how scientists use the scientific method as a way of understanding the world, and how to critically evaluate claims from a scientific perspective. Students will also experience the “doing” of science first-hand in a laboratory setting.

• Outcome: Analyze scientific facts and applications to draw informed conclusions through systematic inquiry in a laboratory environment (Inquiry and Analysis VALUE Rubric)

It is important to gain a sound understanding of oneself in relation to others and an understanding of the social institutions that people create and which serve to influence our lives. In these courses, students will use critical analysis to investigate the influence of social institutions on personal attitudes, values, and behavior in order to gain an understanding of oneself in relation to others.

• Outcome: Apply strategies to analyze the influence of social and behavioral systems on personal attitudes and interpersonal relations (Problem Solving VALUE Rubric)

Literary texts (oral, written, cinematic, multimedia) imagine what it means to be human. Students will critically read a diverse range of texts to both extract and construct meaning. Literary analysis asks students to recognize and use a text’s literary elements, to articulate the contexts that contribute to the text’s meaning, and to consider how meaning differs depending on point of view

• Outcome: Analyze texts to find and construct meanings utilizing literary elements and contexts (Reading VALUE Rubric)

The study of the global, interconnected past provides context for understanding the present: what is past is prologue. Students will utilize modes of inquiry to examine historical events and phenomena that have occurred across time and place. Students will construct an understanding of the past by developing historical questions answered through arguments supported by various forms of historical evidence and scholarly research.

• Outcome: Examine historical events from multiple perspectives, formulating a conclusion based on evidence and scholarly research (Critical Thinking VALUE Rubric)

Understanding the interaction between humans and their environment is crucial to maintaining a sustainable use of natural resources for a healthy world. Students will learn about environmental issues that exist or are likely to arise in the future. Students will understand, and articulate perspectives on, the complex interactions between society and the natural world by synthesizing the scientific, ethical, and cross-cultural context of environmental matters.

• Outcome: Analyze environmental issues to investigate their global impacts and implications for the future (Civic Engagement VALUE Rubric)

We live in an interconnected world in which understanding of cultures and societies is essential. Students will explore cultural and ethical perspectives different from their own; reflect on how their own cultural rules influence their behavior and how others view them.

• Outcome: Apply knowledge of global communities through critical engagement with diverse cultural practices and/or languages (Global Learning VALUE Rubric)