Understanding the Goals of the Gettysburg College Curriculum

Understanding the Goals of the Gettysburg College Curriculum

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.

(a). Demonstrate proficiency in the comprehension, analysis, and interpretation of "texts" (understood in a post-modernist sense) characteristic of each of the following:� the humanities, the arts, the social sciences, and the natural sciences;

(b). Identify and articulate the distinctive modes of inquiry, analysis, and expression characteristic of the humanities, the arts, the social sciences, and the natural sciences;

(c). Produce work that effectively employs the distinctive modes of inquiry, analysis, and expression characteristic of the humanities, the arts, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.

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.

(a). Demonstrate the ability to approach issues and problems from multidisciplinary perspectives or to apply effectively the methods or techniques of one discipline to the issues of another;

(b). Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship and the fluidity of boundaries between disciplines;

(c). Demonstrate proficiency in the comprehension, analysis, and interpretation of multidisciplinary texts;

(d). Produce work that effectively employs multidisciplinary perspectives or cross-disciplinary applications;

(e). Produce work that effectively applies quantitative, inductive, or deductive reasoning in a substantial analysis, argument, or synthesis;

(f). Produce work in the capstone experience of the major that demonstrates the capacity to integrate content, methods, and perspectives from across the major.

Effective Communication

Gettysburg College students should develop proficiency in the skills of writing, reading, speaking, 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.

(a). Write effectively and intelligently to a range of purposes in the English language (e.g., informing, persuading, advancing an argument, expressing, creating, etc.);

(b). Read with understanding a wide range of texts in the four domains of the curriculum - humanities, arts, social sciences, and natural sciences;

(c). Secure with proper citation, evaluate critically, and use effectively relevant information for problem-solving and presentation of ideas, issues, and arguments;

(d). Speak effectively to a purpose before an audience;

(e). Demonstrate effective listening skills;

(f). Demonstrate skill in using electronic media generally appropriate to contemporary academic and professional workplaces;

(g). Produce scholarly or creative works that effectively employ the communication conventions and means of the major field.

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.

� (a). �Demonstrate at least intermediate level proficiency in the ability to read and write a foreign language and to speak it (in non-Classical languages) in social contexts;

� (b). Demonstrate an understanding of the social history and culture related to the selected foreign language, including significant contemporary issues;

� (c). Demonstrate an understanding of a Non-Western culture, including salient differences from the West;

(d). Demonstrate an understanding of some element of diversity within the culture of the United States, OR, demonstrate an understanding of a significant concept related to diversity (such as race, gender, cultural identity, etc.);

(e). Produce work that effectively recognizes the relevance of cultures other than that of mainstream U.S. culture;

(f). Produce work that demonstrates an analysis of methodology, historical context, and/or social ramifications of some aspect of natural science or technology.