Assumptions of General Education

General Education includes several different course types, which serve distinct purposes.
1. Distribution courses are discipline-based courses staffed by academic departments and provide students with breadth of learning across academic disciplines.
2. Interdisciplinary courses do one of the following:
  1. Provide students with options to complete a particular requirement through a course in one of a variety of academic disciplines, or
  2. Integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives in one course.
Common content courses provide students with the same instructional content across sections of the course. Common content ensures that all students complete the content regardless of major or the course section. Common content also enables educators to build upon the common content in other General Education courses or the major.
Academic majors may fulfill the General Education requirements in distinct ways.
1. General Education courses may be approved to meet both a major and a General Education requirement for an academic major (met/major). Due to the breadth of learning students gain through General Education, there are natural overlaps between the major and General Education. To avoid unnecessary duplication of study, each major is granted this overlap or reduction of three credit hours from one of the General Education requirements. Therefore, while the General Education requirements total 49-51 credits, most academic majors do not require students to complete 49-51 stand-alone General Education credits.
2. If degree requirements for a program exceed 128 credits, General Education requirements may be waived or reduced. For a general education course to be waived, the program must demonstrate that courses required for the major meet the general education course learning objectives.
3. A reduction (a deletion of the requirement) is granted when major requirements exceed 128 credits even after assigning the maximum met/majors and waivers.
4. The parameters for met/major, waiver, and reduction are included in the Parameters for the Curriculum (Community of Educators Handbook 1.9).
General Education courses are designed to meet one set of learning objectives; therefore, students may not “double dip,” that is, they may not meet multiple General Education requirements through one course.