Rationale and Guidelines

Communication skills are a central part of this general education curriculum. While specific writing requirements are not detailed in the approved General Education categories, all approved courses must provide students with meaningful opportunities to communicate the results of their inquiries and analyses. All types of communication are encouraged, including any form of communication specific to a discipline: oral, written, visual, graphic, and other forms of communication. Departments and faculty teaching general education courses must determine the best way to provide students with meaningful practice with communication skills.

In addition to communication skills, all general education courses must:

• Be appropriate for students with no prior college-level background in the category of study.
• Include appropriate general and category-specific technologies to advance and expand students’ information literacy and technology skills.
• Promote and develop college-level reading ability (e.g. advanced vocabulary, reading for multiple levels of meaning, comprehension of expressions of the discipline under study.)
• Engage students in the critical analysis of the works of the category of study.
• Prompt students to identify and discuss significant and/or influential moments in the evolution of the category of study.
• Encourage students to make meaningful connections between their studies in general education and their major area of study.
• Require students to review and abide by the UTC Honor Code.

Given the nature of General Education, courses must:

• Be open to any UTC student, independent of classification or major.   Exemptions with accompanying rationale can be requested at the time of certification/recertification.

Along with the specific course outcomes, all General Education course syllabi must place the following statement in a prominent place in the syllabus and list the category or subcategory outcomes.

This course is certified as a General Education course fulfilling the <name of category> category. Please consult with your advisor and check the specific requirements for your major to determine if this course is a good fit for your plan of study.

The overall outcomes for the category are:

<list the category or subcategory outcomes>.

The General Education Committee will grant programmatic exceptions to these guidelines and criteria to departments that demonstrate that a General Education requirement would unduly interfere with the progress of their students toward graduation or put at risk their program’s accreditation. The current exceptions granted to programs for General Education requirements will remain in place until such time as those programs come up for accreditation or renewal. Programmatic exceptions will be reviewed and renewed, if still necessary, when programs, as a part of their self study, seek accreditation or renewal.