General Education Program (Fall '06 - Spring'09)

Effective Fall 2006 to Spring 2009

THE GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM  — A REACH TOWARD EXCELLENCE

Rationale

The General Education Program at Delaware State University is predicated on the University's definition of the educated person. Delaware State University, through its general education curriculum and its specialized major curricula, provides a set of academic experiences designed to produce within students the knowledge, skills and attitudes that empower them to solve problems, clarify values, secure and sustain meaningful professions and careers, and embrace learning as a life-long process. Thus, Delaware State University aims to graduate an educated person possessing the following characteristics:

The General Education Program is the University's commitment to providing breadth and depth to students' academic, cultural, social, moral, ethical, and physical development during their undergraduate experience.

The General Education Program recognizes that teaching and learning embrace several bodies of knowledge, skills, and sensibilities that combine to form the whole student. Therefore, at Delaware State the goals of the General Education Program are divided into those areas of study that best describe the experiences that all students are required to complete in order to complement those experiences that the specialized curriculum in each major program of study provides. Areas of study in the General Education Program at Delaware State University are the following:

Core Courses-- those courses that all students must study because they are fundamental to all learning and basic to the mission of the University.  A grade of “C” or better is required in Core Courses.

Foundation Courses for Life-Long Learning — those categories of courses from which students may choose a designated number of credit hours that provide breadth and the well-roundedness of a liberal education in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, mathematics, and social sciences.

Senior Capstone Experience--a course such as senior seminar, internship, or student teaching-with-seminar--any course that serves as the final course in which a student demonstrates competence in the body of knowledge and skills inherent in a major. It is also the course in which the student shows an understanding of the breadth of knowledge and skills that a mastery of general education provides. It enables students to make "real world" connections to their discipline and to other disciplines as well. The Senior Capstone Experience brings general education and major programs of study together providing an opportunity for students to demonstrate their becoming "the educated person."  

Goals

The following goals of general education speak to breadth, integration, and scaffolding of knowledge, skills, and sensibilities that are inherent in the mission of the University. The goals of general education are the following:

1. General education should focus on the essential attitudes and behaviors that promote reflection and encourage life-long learning, wellness, and engagement with ideas, issues, and new experiences.
2. General education should foster the development of critical thinking; curiosity about the social and natural worlds in which we live; appreciation for the complexities of knowledge and tolerance for ambiguity; and a capacity for attaining perspective on one's own life through self-examination and the study of others.
3. General education should engage students in activities that strengthen their ability to read, write, speak, listen, and think effectively.
4. General education should provide students with opportunities to examine and reflect upon moral and ethical problems and issues.
5. General education should enable students to use technology in order to access and manipulate information competently.
6. General education should enable students to understand and appreciate the ways social and cultural differences and similarities structure human experiences and knowledge--in the arts, the humanities, mathematics, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. As an important aspect of general education, students should understand multicultural dimensions of the world in which we live, especially the experiences of people of African descent.
7. General education should emphasize study in breadth and encourage students to explore the ways disciplined inquiry in the major can shed light on broader issues in their own lives and to render service to humanity.

Integrated Strands

Reading, writing, speaking, listening across-the-curriculum

College graduates should be able to communicate effectively. Students should be able to do the following: comprehend, analyze, and evaluate various texts; write coherent essays; write and speak effectively and correctly; listen actively to what teachers and peers are saying; and write the standard form of the English language that is relatively free from grammatical, mechanical, and usage errors. Communicating effectively is not the exclusive domain of the English department. It is the responsibility of all teachers to inculcate effective communication skills throughout the curriculum. 

Critical thinking/Problem-Solving/Quantitative Reasoning

College graduates should be able to move beyond the mere conveying or restating of other's facts and ideas. Students should be able to do the following: (a) reflect upon, question, analyze, and evaluate information; (b) assess bias, narrowness and contradictions; (c) formulate hypotheses and alternatives; (d) evaluate an argument in terms of reasoning and applicability; (e) determine how new data may lead to confirmation or questioning of conclusions; (f) make inferences, comparisons, formulate frameworks or categories, classify data, and translate information from one medium to another; and (g) analyze and evaluate their own arguments and those of others in order to confirm or deny the accuracy, validity, and reliability of their own reasoning and of the various sources of information they hear or read.