GUIDELINES FOR GENERAL EDUCATION COURSES AT University of New Hampshire

The "Report of the Undergraduate Curriculum review Committee" and the University Senate have charged the University General Education Committee with developing, implementing, and maintaining a coherent and high-quality university general education curriculum according to the guidelines approved by the Senate. As a first step in carrying out our charge, we have worked hard as a committee- and with some success- to come to general agreement about the basic parameters of such general education courses. The following guidelines are offered as an aid to departments and programs in developing the general education criteria listed on page 26 of the "Report of the Undergraduate Curriculum Review Committee."

To the degree that it is possible and appropriate , faculty and departments at UNH should include within their general education offerings knowledge of and perspectives within a diversity of cultural traditions, races, classes, and gender from around the world.

Category One

The Committee believes the areas of Writing Skills and Quantitative Reasoning represent special skills expected of the undergraduate and thus represent a particular challenge to the curriculum. Since the English Department faculty have long developed courses which meet the intent of the requirement for writing skills, we have designated English 401 as meeting that requirement.

Category Two

Quantitative reasoning refers to the ability to think critically and analytically using abstract formal methods with broad application. In 1982, the Undergraduate Curriculum Review Committee wrote that a quantitative reasoning course "... must acquaint the student with how to analyze, manipulate, and understand quantitative data." We support the broader view that a quantitative reasoning course should foster critical thinking skills and develop formal reasoning abilities. That is, " quantitative reasoning" can be understood to include reasoning with formal symbols, as well as with numbers. We recognize that certain courses in symbolic logic and computer science, in addition to mathematics and statistics, can promote the goals of the quantitative reasoning requirement.

1) More important than the actual subject matter content of the course should be its emphasis on higher-level cognitive processes, which include:

a) integrating quantitative information from various sources and in various forms

b) relating quantitative information to qualitative information in prose

c) disembedding quantitative information in prose

d) synthesizing quantitative information to form and defend one's position

e) recognizing the need for more information

f) realizing that many different approaches can be used to solve a problem

g) focusing on key information and discarding irrelevant information

h) making decisions on the basis of quantitative information.

Only through the development of these higher-order processes can a student hope to develop confidence in dealing with quantitative information, and thus become an intelligent consumer of data.

We emphasize that a quantitative reasoning course should not be a remedial course in high school mathematics.* Rather it should build on the high school experience in helping the student learn to think critically and reason formally. We see particular value in a course which would draw on examples from the real world to challenge that student and would use the computer as a tool in the analysis of the problem.

Categories Three- Eight

The following criteria apply for Groups 3 through 8:

1) Every course carrying general education credit ought to help each student become functionally literate in various areas of learning at UNH. The goals of the program are to:

a) Help students learn to organize and express their thoughts in a variety of disciplines through significant writing experiences in each area;

b) Introduce students to the fundamentals of language, issues, perspectives, and methodologies in a particular field, discipline, or sub-area of study;

c) Deal with the larger issues and ideas of our time with which any university graduate should be familiar;

d) Focus upon and stress the acquisition and improvement of basic skills generic to further learning - e.g., sophisticated reading, comprehension, library research, critical thinking, scientific reasoning and laboratory research, and effective writing;

e) Balance the content knowledge of a subject with how knowledge is acquired, verified, utilized, and communicated;

f) Include perspectives from a diversity of cultural traditions, races, classes, and genders from around the world;

g) Encourage students to understand and to formulate their own interdisciplinary connections.

2) Each course should concentrate on teaching the mode of critical thinking and effective writing and communication appropriate to any particular field.

a) This means, where appropriate, that such courses would provide opportunities for students to express themselves in writing and to receive training which improves their ability to communicate effectively in a variety of forms. At a minimum, those students who require remedial assistance would be identified and referred to the appropriate programs providing such help.

b) In addition, these courses should emphasize the methods of inquiry and systematic use of data, documentation, experimentation, computation, and observation relevant to a particular discipline or field of study.

3) Lastly, these general education courses should:

a) Be specifically designed with the "general" students in mind, i.e., the student for whom this may be his or her only formal experience in the particular area of learning involved;

b) Have no specific college-level prerequisites;

c) Be for entry-level students, although it may be appropriate to offer such courses on the 400, 500, or 600 levels;

d) Employ appropriate-sized classes, or sections, which provide for active learning, consistent with the discipline or field of study, such as laboratory, library, studio, performance, or field experience;

e) Be listed under only one of the eight general education requirement or categories unless there are pressing and exceptional reasons otherwise.

The University General Education Committee

Revised 1/00

You may print out the following proposal forms, complete them and send ELEVEN copies via campus mail to the General Education Committee through your liaison.