Core General Education Outcomes
In the fall of 2018, using input from a survey of St. Edward's University faculty and a review of the general education requirement learning outcomes, the General Education Implementation Committee identified the following programmatic outcomes for our core curriculum:
- Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility
- Communication (Oral, Written, and Visual)
- Critical Thinking
- Intercultural Knowledge and Competence
- Problem Solving & Innovative Thinking
- Ethical Reasoning
SEU defined the first five of these outcomes for our campus during the General Education Learning Outcomes discussion sessions on March 8, 2019. During these sessions and in work sessions that followed, faculty developed campus definitions and rubrics for each of these general education learning outcomes.
General Education Requirement Student Learning Outcomes
Curriculum Committee and Academic Council have approved the student learning outcomes (SLOs) each of the general education curriculum requirements.
Please click on the file below for SLOs for each general education requirement.
Freshman Seminar
Freshman Seminar SLOs:
Seminar Goal: Students will join a community of learners and actively engage in academic and co-curricular exploration. As they do so, they will develop critical thinking skills necessary to become successful students and lifelong learners by meaningfully confronting questions of social justice through the course materials and co-curricular experiences.
To achieve this goal, students will:
1. Develop an emerging awareness of assumptions by engaging a variety of perspectives.
2. Interpret and then evaluate issues/evidence/sources central to course content.
3. Communicate effectively about multiple perspectives explored during the course.
4. Reflect on and apply knowledge developed in the classroom and co-curricular experiences.
Bulletin-Related Requirements:
Freshmen are required to pass this course.
Quantitative Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning SLOs
The student will:
1. Interpret quantitative information.
2. Use quantitative methods to solve problems.
3. Make conclusions based on quantitative analysis.
Other Course Content Requirements:
Students must use mathematical, statistical, and/or computational methods to analyze and solve problems involving quantitative information to make and communicate conclusions based on such analyses. Simply learning how to use new technologies, software, or computer applications is not sufficient.
Bulletin-Related Requirements:
MATH 1312 or higher.
Modern Language
Modern Language SLOs:
- Interpretive competence (reading, listening/viewing in the target language):Students will be able to interpret information in authentic messages and informational texts using listening, reading and viewing strategies.
- Interpersonal competence (speaking, listening/viewing, reading and writing in the target language): Students will be able to interact with others using culturally appropriate language and gestures to make requests, negotiate meaning through clarifications and implement conversation strategies on familiar and some unfamiliar topics.
- Presentational competence (speaking, writing in the target language):Students will be able to present meaningful information, concepts and viewpoints on familiar and some unfamiliar topics from across disciplines using writing processes and presentation strategies.
- Cultural Competence (reading, listening/viewing, writing, speaking in the target language): Students will demonstrate a basic understanding of cultural behaviors within a global context. They will compare social practices from their own culture relative to those from another culture.
Bulletin-Related Requirements:
Students are encouraged to complete their Modern Language requirements in their first year.
Students who take the modern language placement test in French, Spanish, Chinese and German during orientation will enroll in the course level indicated by the placement test result. There is no formal placement test for Arabic and Japanese. However, students enrolled in these courses will be placed in them by their instructor by way of an exam.
Oral Communication
Oral Communication SLOs
Organization and Message
The student will employ a professional speech structure that reinforces the central message of the presentation with assistance from a well-constructed outline
Language
The student will communicate the central message effectively through insightful word choice and creative selection of appropriate rhetorical devices.
Delivery
The student will deploy a variety of appropriate delivery tools to engage the audience.
Supporting Material
The student will offer varied and relevant evidence to support and reinforce his or her credibility.
Other Course Content Requirements:
Every class must require at least 3 major presentations.
Writing 1
Writing 1 SLOs
1. Students will be able to read and use texts to support their writing goals. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
- The student will reflect on useful strategies for reading difficult texts.
- The student will reflect on the ethical choices inherent in the relationship between reading and writing.
- The student will identify and explain the rhetorical moves common to texts.
- The student will reference research-based texts in strategic ways (including the use of summary, paraphrases, or quotes).
2. Students will adapt their writing and their writing practices for various writing contexts to respond to varied rhetorical situations. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
- The student will analyze writing processes using a vocabulary that includes terms like audience, purpose, rhetorical situation, reflection, and revision.
- The student will demonstrate awareness of their own position within the rhetorical situation.
- The student will experiment with various heuristics for composing.
- The student will demonstrate how social, rhetorical, and technological contexts shape writing conceptions, processes, rules, and conventions.
3. Students will demonstrate substantial and successful revision by creating successive drafts that show global improvement and an ability to respond to substantive issues raised by instructor and peer feedback. This outcome can be achieved through the following pathway:
- The student will demonstrate awareness that choices about conventions and genre expectations are shaped by the rhetorical situation: by the particular purpose of a text, its occasion, and the audience.
Writing 2
Writing 2 SLOs
Students will build on and expand their use of resources to support research-based writing goals. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
- The student will analyze and assess genre, discourse conventions, rhetorical situation, and argument strategy in complex texts.
- The student will find, analyze, and evaluate research- and evidence-based sources for appropriateness, timeliness, and validity within writing context.
- The student will examine the ethical choices associated with being a member of various discourse communities.
Students will adapt their research practices according to varied rhetorical situations. This outcome can be achieved through any of the following pathways:
- The student will use acquired vocabulary to talk about research and writing processes, continuing work with audience, purpose, and rhetorical situation in light of discourse community and genre.
- The student will demonstrate awareness of their own position within the rhetorical situation as a member of a targeted discourse community.
- The student will experiment with various heuristics for researching and writing long-term, research-driven projects.
- The student will produce research-based writing relevant to ongoing conversations.
- The student will choose genre and conventions appropriate for purpose and audience.
Students will demonstrate substantial and successful revision by creating successive drafts that show global improvement and an ability to respond to substantive issues raised by instructor and peer feedback. This outcome can be achieved through the following pathway:
- The student will choose genre and conventions appropriate for purpose and audience.
Bulletin-Related Requirements:
Writing 1 is a prerequisite for Writing 2.
Studies in Theology and Religion
Studies in Theology and Religion SLOs
The student will:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the historical and cultural development of ideas and beliefs as expressed within a religious tradition or traditions.
- Critically analyze expressions of a religious tradition or traditions using key disciplinary categories and interpretative methods of theology and religious studies.
- Demonstrate an ability to integrate their study of a religious tradition or traditions with societal or personal questions of significance.
Ethics
Ethics SLOs
The student will:
- Demonstrate working knowledge of contemporary or historical philosophical ethical theories and ideas.
- Critically analyze, compare, and contrast philosophical ethical theories and ideas.
- Articulate how ethical reasoning informs their moral beliefs, decision making, and values.
Other Course Content Requirements:
Courses that satisfy the Ethics requirement are philosophical ethics courses. Philosophical ethics can be described as the attempt to think clearly and deeply about fundamental moral questions that arise for us as humans. Ethics is concerned with evaluating appropriate action, proper character, the characteristics of the good life, and what is involved in acting rightly. To study historical and contemporary philosophical theories is to explore the most enduring positions that these concerns have addressed.
Natural Sciences
Natural Sciences SLOs
Specifically, students will be able to
- Explain the process of science and its role in society.
- Apply scientific principles to explain the natural world.
- Engage in science by applying its principles through experiential learning.
- Communicate science in an evidence-based way verbally and in writing.
Notes, Thoughts, and Examples Related to the Requirement SLOs:
- Emphasize the open-ended nature of scientific inquiry. Understand the centrality of the scientific method. Sources may include scientific textbooks, peer-reviewed literature, and/or popular press. (Cognitive level: comprehension).
- Understanding their world through the lens of science. Differentiate between scientific and non-scientific questions and investigations as reported in available literature. Distinguish effectively among conflicting claims allegedly based on scientific investigation. (Cognitive level: analysis).
- Doing science! Ultimately students should see themselves as active participants in science. Demonstrate the ability to suggest and/or test possible solutions and evaluate the outcomes of those solutions to authentic, real-world problems through scientific investigations in the classroom, laboratory, or field. Embedded activities (10 hours required) such as case and problem-based studies, guided inquiry, simulations, experiments or other experiential learning opportunities should be used to frame this component. (Cognitive level: analysis).
- Written reports and/or oral or poster presentations of science they have done. (Cognitive level: comprehension).
Other Course Content Requirements:
Experiential learning (10 hours required) is any learning that supports students in applying their knowledge and conceptual understanding to real-world problems or situations where the instructor directs and facilitates learning. The classroom, laboratory, or field can serve as a setting for experiential learning through embedded activities such as case and problem-based studies, guided inquiry, simulations, or experiments (definition adapted from Wurdinger & Carlson, 2010).
Diverse American Perspectives
Diverse American Perspectives SLOs:
The student will:
- Describe the various factors that contribute to the construction of social identities in American society.
- Analyze struggles over freedom, equality, equity, justice, and power within American society.
- Critically examine the historical context of significant issues and events in America.
Global Perspectives
Global Perspectives SLOs
Through the study of a combination of cultural, political, historical, societal, technological and/or economic legacies, the student will:
- Demonstrate knowledge about an area of the world, country, or region within a country and place it within a global context involving individual, societal, cultural, economic and/or political relationships (Knowledge).
- Demonstrate the ability to compare, analyze and evaluate diverse perspectives, including their own, to experiences and legacies within a global context outside of their own society (Perspective and Comparison).
- Demonstrate the ability to identify issues of global concern and then apply critical, moral and ethical analyses drawing on multiple perspectives such as inequality, economic status, identity, gender, class, ideology, ethnicity, and power relations (Application).
Exploring Artistic Works
Exploring Artistic Works
Students will analyze significant theatrical, visual, literary, and/or performative works, with a primary focus on artistic form and content. Students will learn the characteristics of disciplinary genres relevant to the subject matter and become familiar with cultural and historical factors that shape artistic works. They will apply concepts of critical analysis and draw connections between artistic works and relevant cultural issues.
SLOs:
The student will:
- Analyze works of artistic production (theatrical, visual, literary, and/or performative) through inquiry-driven critical interpretation.
- Recognize and interrogate the relation between artistic works and their historical and cultural context.
- Articulate, engage with, and evaluate multiple points of view relating to artistic works.
- Apply the critical vocabulary of relevant disciplines, and use appropriate discipline-specific frameworks to analyze artistic works.
Creativity and Making
Creativity and Making SLOs
The student will:
- Develop a tool kit within the specified creative discipline, including craft vocabulary techniques, and ways of experimenting with the invention of forms, processes, actions, or ideas.
- Make a body of original creative output by applying appropriate discipline-specific techniques and strategies.
- Articulate conceptual understanding of creative practices via reflection on a body of creative output produced throughout the course.
- Analyze and evaluate their own work and the work of peers and professionals through the application of discipline-specific vocabulary in written and/or oral analysis and critique.
Other Course Content Requirements:
- More than 50% of coursework must be devoted to the production of a body of creative work. While the creative process may require the viewing, interpretation or analysis of existing works, course activity must be weighted towards students participating in producing original creative work within the discipline they are studying. A significant amount of class time should be devoted to workshopping, critique, studio time, practice, or creative exercises
- Assignments must emphasize the creative process in an iterative manner via the creation, attempts at improvement, and reflection on multiple versions of an artifact or technique. Coursework must reinforce the foundational process of iteration, recognizing that professional creative work is derived from recursive methods and not singular transactions. This may manifest in multiple ways, for example: a major assignment that requires the formal submission of two or more drafts/versions of an artifact; small exercises designed to contribute to refining a technique/process to be applied in a major assignment; one complex artifact/project broken up into multiple smaller stages or components over the course of the semester.
- Coursework or course discussion must encourage students to make connections between the creative process in this discipline and other facets of the students’ education and vocation. As a general education requirement, instructors should recognize that students in the course will likely not pursue the creative discipline as a vocation. Therefore, to make the coursework truly valuable, instructors must be vigilant about explicitly aiding students in identifying opportunities where the creative process learned in this course might transfer to activity in their respective majors.
- Students must participate in the local creative community via attending one or more events related to the discipline being studied. Co-curricular programming allows students to enrich their creative process by experiencing professional examples within the discipline they are studying, and provides opportunities for critique, comparison, and analysis in the classroom. These may include,: attending a performance, lecture, reading, exhibition, etc.
Writing-Rich Mission Markers
Writing-Rich Courses: 1 course at any level, 1 course at the 3000 or 4000 level.
Description
St. Edward’s University is committed to developing students who are “able to express themselves articulately in both oral and written form,” and Writing-Rich courses ensure students are writing in a variety of courses across the Hilltop. Faculty at St. Edward’s are committed to idea that writing is an integral part of learning across disciplines. Writing and research is not restricted to “writing” courses. Therefore, writing-rich courses build on and extend work students began in their Year 1 and Year 2 “writing” courses by reinforcing writing as a process, including the significant roles that feedback and revision play in effective writing. These courses often introduce students to the process of learning to write effectively in discipline-specific formats and styles by helping them make writing choices appropriate for particular discourse communities. Writing-Rich courses may be completed by students in general education and major courses. Students must complete two (2) Writing-Rich courses to fulfill their general education requirements: one (1) at any level and one (1) at either the 3000- or 4000-level.
Requirements
Courses may receive the Writing-Rich (WR) designation after being vetted by a cross-disciplinary, university-wide committee composed of full-time faculty members, which will include representation from each school. The committee will evaluate the assignments integrated into the curriculum, using the following requirements:
- A Writing-Rich course must carry at least three units of credit and must be taken for a letter grade.
- A Writing-Rich course will schedule writing assignments for regular intervals throughout the term.
- These writing assignments may include multiple short papers or larger projects.
- These writing assignments may include papers, posters, lab reports, web pages, and other formats and types of writing appropriate to the course or discipline.
- These writing assignments may be components of one large writing project or several smaller papers, or some combination of the two. Informal, ungraded, writing assignments may also be used to help students create one polished piece of writing.
- A Writing-Rich course will offer students feedback on their writing.
- This feedback will take place through faculty written (or recorded) comments or individual conferences and may also be supplemented by feedback from peer review; class conferences; writing workshops; use of a teaching assistant; or other opportunities to discuss a writing assignment with the faculty member teaching the course.
- This feedback will take place through faculty written (or recorded) comments or individual conferences and may also be supplemented by feedback from peer review; class conferences; writing workshops; use of a teaching assistant; or other opportunities to discuss a writing assignment with the faculty member teaching the course.
- A Writing-Rich course will use feedback on student writing to emphasize the process of revision.
- Students will complete at least one substantive revision (i.e., not just copyediting) of a writing project based on feedback provided in the course.
- These revisions may include rewriting to improve a grade; producing successive drafts; polishing a paper for an on- or off-campus conference or publication; or other discipline-specific approaches as approved by the university-wide committee.
Experiential Learning for Social Justice Mission Marker
Experiential Learning for Social Justice Description
These courses or other experiences have a significant social justice and experiential learning component. The flag can be satisfied in approved courses within the curriculum (gen ed or the majors) or through approved co-curricular experiences (with specific and significant learning and assessment guidelines).
Defining Experiential Learning for Social Justice
Experiential Learning for Social Justice involves engaging students in contexts outside of the classroom in which they will broaden and deepen their awareness of social problems and participate in community-based activities that address these issues.
At their best, courses designated as Experiential Learning for Social Justice (EL4SJ) should reflect St. Edward’s Holy Cross Mission by pursuing academic excellence through experiential learning that uses any of the following approaches:
- Service-learning
- Research with faculty
- Internship or field experience
- Immersive domestic or international travel experiences
Requirements
1. Students apply knowledge developed through the course to engage with social justice issues. EL4SJ courses explore social justice through any of the following lenses:
- Interrogate the ways existing social, economic, and cultural institutions contribute to and maintain inequality,
- Honor the value of students’ lived experiences, critically support their identities, and help them clarify personal values
- Promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic diversity through drawing on a diverse set of voices and perspectives
- Be rooted in movements and the fight for social equity
2. Students carry out a social justice project that engages with a local community. EL4SJ courses engage with the community in one of the following ways:
- Learning with the community—Students apply their knowledge and skills from the classroom to address a challenge in a specific community.
- Researching with the community—Students work with the community on a joint project where the community’s knowledge is integrated and amplified by student research.
- Knowledge sharing with the community—Students share disciplinary knowledge with the community in order to further the well–being, aspirational goals, rights, etc. of the community.
- Including practitioners as teachers—Students learn from the practical knowledge and specific expertise of community members invited into the classroom or out in the field. Note: Community members engaged as instructors should be recognized for their knowledge and properly compensated.
- Social innovation by student—Students devise a new strategy, product, process, etc. to address a social need in a specific community.
3. Students reflect on how community-based, social justice work shapes their understanding of the course material and their values, and how it relates to a liberal arts education at St. Edward’s University.
Social Identities Mission Marker
Social Identities Mission Marker Description
Students will demonstrate an understanding of social identity through courses that focus on topics such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, physical ability, language, and/or social class with an emphasis on analyzing equity. Students will apply and evaluate approaches or modes of inquiry used to analyze diversity and equity and the social barriers to these goals.
SLOs
Proposed courses fulfilling at least ONE of the following SLOs would meet the Social Identities curriculum component.
- Express ways in which the intersection of social identities such as race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, gender identities (SOGI), ability, national origin, religion and other identities influence individual life experiences and/or perspectives.
- Integrate, synthesize, and apply course content about underrepresented cultures in both focused and broad interdisciplinary contexts as defined in requirement #1.
- Articulate an awareness and compare some of the central historical and present diversity issues addressed in the course, including race, ethnicity, gender, social class, religion, sexual orientations, gender identities (SOGI), ability, national origin, or other identities.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the history, customs, worldviews, and/or other cultural markers of two or more groups of minority status either within the United States or of national origin outside of the United States.
- Identify, explain and analyze racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ageism, ableism, prejudice, transphobia and discrimination and the impact of these forms of oppression on privilege and marginalization.
Other requirements
- A significant amount of the Social Identities Curriculum Component content must relate directly to the SLOs.
- The Social Identities Mission Marker must be taken after successful completion of Diverse American Perspectives.
A. Diverse American Perspectives Curriculum Component prerequisite to the Social Identities Curriculum Component; not to be taken concurrently.
B. Recommend courses (Diverse American Perspectives and Social Identities Mission Marker) be conceptualized as scaffolded. Social Identities curriculum component is expected to build on the Re-Examining America component.
C Students should be made aware that they can take more than the one required Social Identities CC course in various majors and disciplines.
Culminating Experience
Culminating Experience SLOs
Though required of all students, the Culminating Experience (CE) course is generally taken as part of a student’s major. Though CE courses take a variety of formats, all CE courses share the following SLOs and other requirements.
The student will:
- Investigate an open-ended question to be answered or problem to be solved using discipline-appropriate processes.
- Synthesize and apply skills and knowledge gained from the curriculum and co-curriculum to produce a discipline specific product (e.g. research project, practicum, internship, performance, creative work, community engagement).
- Evaluate the results of the inquiry process.
- Communicate project outcomes in discipline-appropriate ways.
Bulletin-Related Requirements
- Students may complete a Culminating Experience (CE) project in a course outside of the major or department (as part of an honors course, for instance). This course would only fulfill a major requirement if approved by the department.
- CE project may be developed over a series of courses in the major, but to be truly a culminating experience, the CE project should typically be attempted after the student has completed at least 75% of their curriculum in the major.
- A student must be junior-level or higher to enroll in a CE course.
- Students completing a double major will complete two CE projects if required to do so by the departments. Double majors may complete a single interdisciplinary CE project if the two departments approve.
- Students must complete Writing 1 and Writing 2 before enrolling in their CC project. Unless the departmental Culminating Experience takes the form of a series of courses, students must also complete one Writing-rich course before enrolling in the CE course.
In place of a course in the major, in cases approved by the departments, students may take an independent study course or an interdisciplinary CE project course (perhaps offered in the summer) if they are
- pursuing a double major
- with permission of both majors
- miss or fail a CE course in the major that is offered only rarely
- belong to majors which are unable to provide a CE course or course sequence that accommodates all students
Other Course Content Requirements:
- The Culminating Experience is a senior-level course or series of courses in the major or the department that must include a substantial, discipline-appropriate project or creative work. The Culminating Experience course demonstrates and integrates key learning outcomes in the major discipline and general education curriculum, encompassing the student’s entire career at St. Edward’s.
- The CE project may consist of a discipline-based academic research project, practicum, internship, performance, creative work, or community engagement or any combination of these. To complete a CE project, a student
- engages in problem-solving, interpreted broadly
- critically analyzes and evaluates project outcomes
- may work collaboratively with peers at discretion of the department
- communicates project process and outcomes in a discipline-appropriate way (e.g., traditional academic research paper, seminar presentation, poster presentation, exhibition, performance, project portfolio).
- The CE course (or course sequence) must include a reflection component in which the student reflects on the project as the culmination of his/her SEU experience and/or connection with any part of the SEU mission. Reflection must be written and contribute substantially to the course grade.