General Education Task Force - Purpose and Mission
Charge | Members | Purpose and Mission | Minutes | Resources
The UWGB General Education Program supports the University's Select Mission by providing an interdisciplinary, problem-focused educational experience that prepares students to think critically and address complex issues in a multicultural and evolving world.
To that end, the UWGB General Education Program will help to develop liberally educated students and facilitate their living in an ever changing world by:
Introducing students to interdisciplinary education.
This goal relates most directly to the primary mission of UWGB and ensures that students have an introduction to interdisciplinarity and its importance early in their career.
Providing knowledge that includes disciplinary breadth.
Students must have adequate breadth of knowledge and course work that is representative of distinct ways of thinking.
Working with students to develop an understanding of critical social problems.
In order to have an appropriate understanding of problems and issues (e.g., sustainability) regardless of their eventual major, students must have background and/or a variety of experiences from global and multicultural perspectives. In addition, UWGB's select mission recognizes the importance of a university education to promote engaged citizens. The general education program will help foster these elements of a student's education.
Supporting the development of important academic skills including communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and quantitative and information literacy.
Certain skills are critical for any liberally educated individual in order to promote life-long learning and understand the complexity of the issues and problems of our world.
It is important that a number of the elements above are considered "essential learning outcomes" by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and supported by their research related to Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP). These outcomes are:
- Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world
- Intellectual and practical skills
- Personal and social responsibility
- Integrative learning
An implementation plan will follow.