Education for the Common Good
The New England College General Education Program reflects the values and commitments of a liberal arts education as reflected in a humanizing curriculum that supports engaged and responsible learning and teaching.
By placing the Common Good at the center of our Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) Core Curriculum, New England College recognizes the importance of understanding and strengthening the interdependencies that form the basis of community and promote life, and human flourishing. As the nucleus of our general education program, the LAS Core Curriculum provides a course of study that demonstrates how each of the disciplines of knowledge contributes to this understanding. Through the application of ideas to real world challenges, LAS seminars encourage responsible, ethical action in service to preserving and maintaining our natural and civic environments as the foundations of our collective well‐being.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completing the Liberal Arts & Sciences Core Curriculum students will be able to:
- Describe the interdependence between human culture and the natural world;
- Explain how concepts of sustainability are connected to issues of social justice, the environment, and the economy;
- Explain the relationship between freedom of inquiry in the pursuit of knowledge and democratic/free societies;
- Discuss the inter‐relationships among the disciplines;
- Apply critical and creative thinking, quantitative reasoning, and information literacy skills in the pursuit of knowledge;
- Apply course content (theory) to the world beyond the classroom (practice);
- Articulate an understanding of the ethical dimensions of knowledge and action.
Learning Outcomes by LAS Seminar
LAS Writing Outcomes
In this course, students will learn to:
- Read, discern, and evaluate texts critically
- Reflect upon, analyze, and respond to a variety of texts pertaining to the civic and the natural world
- Identify a target audience
- Apply the compositional process (observe, reflect, investigate, brainstorm, outline, write, revise, edit, and proofread) to a variety of writing forms
- Understand the importance of and the process for proper documentation
- Plan, draft, revise, and edit their texts according to the conventions of composition;
- Utilize different rhetorical strategies in writing: narrative, descriptive, expository, argumentative, and persuasive;
- Compile a comprehensive portfolio that demonstrates competency in compositional skill and process.
LAS Quantitative Literacy Outcomes
• Number sense and estimation;
• Statistical interpretation and basic probability;
• Interpretation of graphs and models;
• Logic, critical thinking, and problem solving.
LAS Seminar 1 Outcomes
Students will demonstrate ability to:
- Articulate a foundation for exploring the question of human nature and a shared humanity from multiple perspectives;
- Discuss our interdependence with other humans and life supporting eco-systems;
- Formulate questions that lead to discovery;
- Critically identify and test assumptions;
- Interpret and reflect on texts, information;
- Discuss the interdisciplinary nature of human understanding.
- Articulate a personal vision of the responsibilities and obligations of a shared humanity in the context of the natural world.
LAS 2 Seminar Outcomes
Students will demonstrate ability to:
- Articulate the central values that form the basis of democratic thought and democratic free societies;
- Explain the importance of the concept of human rights in the development of cultures;
- Analyze the challenges of democracy in relation to the diversity of human culture and thought;
- Identify the shared struggles of people, historically and cross-culturally, in their efforts to exercise political sovereignty and secure basic human rights.
LAS 3 Seminar Outcomes
Students will demonstrate ability to:
- Develop and practice skills needed to produce a specific artistic form;
- Craft a portfolio of artworks/series of performances/texts or their equivalents;
- Apply the vocabulary of analysis in peer evaluation in the creative arts as well as the vocabulary of the discipline to self and peer evaluation;
- Demonstrate conceptual competency in the discipline.
LAS 4 Seminar Outcomes
Students will demonstrate ability to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of how developments in social and intellectual history shape and affect human values and institutions;
- Articulate foundational theories specific to the social science under consideration;
- Explain the significance of policies and regulations in the social sciences;
- Identify ethical considerations and dilemmas that arise in the social sciences;
- Demonstrate an understanding of basic social science research methods; acquire and use appropriate professional social science terminology.
LAS 5 Seminar Outcomes
Students will demonstrate ability to:
- Apply scientific methods to develop and test hypotheses in the laboratory or the field;
- Apply qualitative/quantitative reasoning to the scientific process.
LAS 6 Seminar Outcomes
Students will:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of the humanities;
- Produce work that exhibits a multi-disciplinary approach to knowledge;
- Articulate how the humanities informs our understanding of what it means to be human.
LAS 7 Seminar Outcomes
Students will:
- Apply multi-disciplinary approaches to analyze course topics;
- Articulate the relationship and interdependencies between the local and global community relevant to course content.
Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum
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