Student Learning Outcomes

Area I: Effective Communication

In a Written Composition Course, students will:

  1. Enact rhetoric by consciously constructing persuasive texts. (Note: Rhetoric implies audience awareness and expectations of making explicit choices about form and content.)
  2. Engage in and practice different research methods, which include analyzing and using sources and developing primary research.
  3. Share writing and composing process with your instructor, peers, and/or the university community and account for the impact of such interactions on composition. 
  4. Demonstrate awareness of conventions of academic research processes, including documentation systems and their purposes.
  5. Compose using digital technologies, gaining awareness of the possibilities and constraints of electronic environments.

In an Oral Communication course, students will:

  1. Organize ideas for multiple extemporaneous speaking contexts.
  2. Employ techniques for effective verbal and non-verbal delivery in public speeches.
  3. Use language to connect with audience members of diverse backgrounds.
  4. Include supporting material in ethical ways to enhance oral arguments.
  5. Manage and reduce communication apprehension when giving speeches for public audiences.

In an Upper-Level Writing Intensive Courses in the Major, students will:

  1. Literacy: Learn and practice flexible strategies for reading and writing for different purposes in a discipline.
  2. Rhetorical Awareness: Write in ways that achieve the purposes for writing and addresses the expectations of audiences in disciplinary contexts.
  3. Research and Inquiry: Learn to engage in inquiry and develop processes for research applicable to and acceptable within one’s discipline.
  4. Genre Awareness: Gain familiarity with and use discipline-specific genres and appropriate modalities to communicate information.
  5. Disciplinary Conventions: Understand and follow the conventions for communicating, disseminating, and interpreting information in a discipline.
  6. Reflection: Cultivate a reflective mindset for analyzing writing processes and constructing plans for subsequent writing through assigned meaningful reflection on writing practices and experiences.

Area II: Quantitative Reasoning

In a Quantitative Reasoning Course, students will learn to solve real-life problems using a mathematical modeling process. They will learn to:

  1. Build an appropriate model.
    1. Estimate an answer to the problem
    2. Identify important components of the model
    3. Collect or generate appropriate data
    4. Analyze the situation using arithmetic, geometric, algebraic, and probabilistic or statistical methods.
  2. Use the model to solve the problem.
    1. Propose a solution
    2. Evaluate the reasonableness of the solution.
  3. Communicate the results of their analysis.
    1. Share the findings in oral or written reports using appropriate mathematical language.
    2. Write summaries to explain how they reached their conclusions.
    3. Communicate quantitative relationships using symbols, equations, graphs, and tables.
  4. Evaluate the model.
    1. Draw other inferences from the model.
    2. Identify the assumptions of the model
    3. Discuss the limitations of the model.

Area III: Perspectives on a Diverse World

In the Global Awareness course, students will:

  1. Explore specific global issues influencing diverse nations and/or cultures, along with their interrelations within the global community.
  2. Explore their own culture and cultural practices and how these relate to the cultures and cultural practices of others in the global community.
  3. Explore the social and historical dynamics that create and influence nations, governments, global alliances, and global conflicts.
  4. Explore the causes and consequences of social, cultural, and racial intolerance in the world.
  5. Analyze and synthesize information from diverse sources to make informed decisions regarding global issues.

In the U.S. Diversity course, students will:

  1. Examine the complexity of their own cultural identities and how these relate to the cultural identities of others in the U.S.
  2. Explore the causes and consequences of social intolerance in the U.S.
  3. Examine the differences between social intolerance and institutionalized racism, ethnocentrism, and exclusion in the U.S.
  4. Explore how diversity has affected and continues to affect income distribution, economic mobility, political access, and the democratic process in the U.S.
  5. Develop an awareness of alternative values, views, and communication styles in the U.S.

Area IV: Knowledge of the Disciplines

In the Arts courses, students will:

  1. Acquire basic knowledge and skills in the use of the vocabularies, materials, tools, techniques, and intellectual methods in an arts discipline.
  2. Examine the relationship between creative and critical thinking.
  3. Learn the relationship between content and form.
  4. Begin to understand historical development in an arts discipline.
  5. Develop ability to evaluate work in an arts discipline.
  6. Learn to define and solve artistic problems.

In Humanities courses, students will:

  1. Contextualize and think critically about texts, ideas, and genres in the humanities. 
  2. Use and construct arguments.
  3. Reflect on personal growth with respect to imagination, empathy, or social and political agency using the methods of the humanities.
  4. Draw connections between course content and contexts outside of the classroom using the disciplinary tools of the humanities.

In Foreign Language courses, students will:

  1. Communicate at a basic functional level in a language other than their own native language.
  2. Demonstrate a basic understanding of the relationship between culture and language.
  3. Use basic forms and structures of a language in communicating in that language.

In Social Science courses, students will:

  1. Use the social science methods or concepts to examine power relationships by considering the complexity within societies/cultures/economies or variation among societies/cultures/economies. 
  2. Apply social science methods or concepts to address questions in the social sciences.
  3. Reflect on how your learning in the class has deepened your understanding of how a particular aspect of society/culture/economy works.
  4. Evaluate a claim about the social world using at least one method or concepts in the social sciences to make informed decisions about social/political/economic issues.

In Natural Science courses, students will:

  1. Attain a basic knowledge of scientific laws that govern the universe.
  2. Solve problems using scientific principles and provided data.
  3. Using methods consistent with the discipline, gather information that is of a quality appropriate for analysis.
  4. Solve problems using scientific principles and original data gathered using methods consistent with the discipline.
  5. Interpret, evaluate, and analyze scientific information presented in the media to become a scientifically literate citizen.

Learning Beyond the Classroom

In Self and Well-Being experiences, students will:

  1. Learn to achieve a balance between education, work, and leisure.
  2. Choose behaviors and environments that promote health and reduce risk.
  3. Develop skills and habits that aid in future life and career pursuits.

In Community Service, Citizenship and Leadership experiences, students will:

  1. Participate in the development, maintenance, and/or change of community standards and norms.
  2. Participate in service/volunteer activities.
  3. Develop leadership skills.
  4. Develop skills and habits that aid in future life and career pursuits.
  5. Develop and practice empathy for others.
  6. Acquire skills for working cooperatively with others.

In Cultural and Academic Activities and Events experiences, students will:

  1. Understand and appreciate the relationship between curricular and co-curricular activities.
  2. Experience and feel part of the campus community.
  3. Appreciate campus activities and events that broaden their academic experiences.

In Career and Professional Development experiences, students will:

  1. Consider their careers and futures as professionals in reference to what they have achieved already, what they are doing currently, and what their interests and goals are.
  2. Explore various career and professional opportunities through structured channels.

In International and Multicultural experiences, students will:

  1. International:
    1. Appreciate cultures outside of the U.S.
    2. Understand how different cultures approach social problems.
    3. Acquire the perspective of a cultural minority.
    4. Acquire the skills necessary to function in another culture.
  2. Multicultural:
    1. Understand and appreciate cultures within the U.S.
    2. Appreciate various forms of cultural expression.
    3. Communicate effectively across cultures within the U.S.

In Undergraduate Research experiences, students will:

  1. Learn to carry out self-directed or independent learning projects.
  2. Collaborate with or be mentored by a faculty member.
  3. Appreciate the value of learning for self-understanding and actualization.
  4. Appreciate the value of intellectual and critical engagement with local and global issues.

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