While the greater part of students' courses of study will be devoted to their major field or specialization, the foundation of the undergraduate curriculum is the General Education Program. General Education is designed to accommodate the increasing specialization of the University within the broader, traditional objectives of higher education, while encouraging students to develop themselves to the fullest extent possible. The role of General Education in the modern higher educational curriculum is to address needs and objectives not adequately served by academic specialization. It encompasses the following aims:
Realizing Individual Student Potentials
One purpose of higher education is to foster and nurture potentials in the individual; hence, General Education aims at personal enrichment, cultural awareness, and breadth of knowledge. These goals imply a curriculum that emphasizes the aesthetic and appreciative faculties, encourages experiment and creativity, and offers opportunities for introspection and the testing of one's own values.
Preparation for Membership in the Community
General Education is also a recognition of the role of higher education within the larger community; it prepares people for their common activities as citizens in a free society. Thus, it should provide opportunities for leadership and service while attending to "education for the common life." Shared values growing out of common educational experience help to bind society together and to make communication possible. Consequently, the General Education curriculum attempts to define and explore the ever-changing body of knowledge which is valuable for all to know. The needs of citizens also include formal literacy; writing proficiency is accordingly a priority at WSU, and all students must satisfy writing proficiency standards for graduation. The curriculum is designed to emphasize study of the relevant past, with the objective of developing an informed, mature, and critical mind. All these goals are designed to contribute to the development of higher level intellectual skills, such as critical thinking.
Providing a Foundation for the Major
"Education for the common life," however, must also include the skills and knowledge useful as a base for careers as well as for citizenship. Communication and reasoning skills have multiple functions; they serve as a base for the major, and they enhance the student's overall abilities and intellectual maturity. To function well in the workplace, one must be able to see beyond its confines. Consequently, exposure to different values, perspectives, and cultural traditions is a valuable preparation for the kinds of work that college graduates do, and the General Education curriculum can enrich the student's sense of the context and meaning of his or her career activities.
Achieving Methodological Competence and Integration of Knowledge
The organization of the General Education curriculum is an expression of our historical experience of how new knowledge has been acquired in the past and how it is likely to be acquired in the future. Consequently, the curriculum stresses the acquisition of a working knowledge of a broad range of scholarly disciplines. One of the goals of General Education is therefore understanding of the major fields of knowledge and the interrelationships between them. However, since students cannot possibly learn everything they need in the four or five years of their undergraduate experience, the curriculum prepares students for continued, life-long learning. Library skills and a general competence with computers are increasingly important in "learning to learn."
These four goals of General Education promote not only awareness of the world, but self-awareness within the students' expanding knowledge. They also encourage integration of the students' anticipated economic roles within the whole of their experience. Toward the attainment of those goals, the faculty has established minimum standards in terms of credit hours, grade points, and distribution requirements within the General Education Program.
University Reqirements for Graduation
