College Learning Goals

Goals of a Gettysburg College Education (Goals for The Gettysburg Curriculum, or General Education)

Overarching Goals: To develop lifelong learners who are able to acquire and process information and ideas in multiple ways (multiple inquiries), are integrative thinkers, are skilled in communication, and are prepared for the responsibilities of local and global citizenship.

• Multiple Inquiries: Gettysburg College students should develop both an understanding of multiple frameworks for analysis and proficiency in reading texts that span the breadth of human expression. Making meaning of such texts requires an understanding of their conceptual and historical underpinnings and their modes of expression.

• Integrative Thinking: Gettysburg College students should develop critical and open minds that seek to adopt well-argued points of view through the active consideration and integration of alternative methodologies, perspectives, and foundational presuppositions.

• Effective Communication: Gettysburg College students should develop proficiency in the skills of writing, reading, and utilizing electronic media. Further, students should be able to articulate questions clearly, identify and gain access to appropriate information, construct cogent arguments, and engage in intellectual and artistic expression.

• Local and Global Citizenship: Gettysburg College students should develop skills, understandings, appreciations, and moral dispositions that enable them to be committed members of and contribute meaningfully to their local, national, and global communities.

Students are expected to achieve these specific general education outcomes, outcomes derived from the above four overarching Goals.

Many of the co-curricular programs of the College are intended to reinforce the declared learning goals of the baccalaureate curriculum. This table displays the integration of the goals.

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