THE PURPOSES OF A UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
UND's Philosophy of General Education
Before consulting the University-wide graduation requirements, immediately
following this section),
students are urged to read this statement of philosophy prepared by
UND's General Education Requirements Committee. One aspect of the University-wide
requirements for a baccalaureate
degree is completion of UND's general education requirements. This statement places the general
education requirements
into a broader context and indicates the end results which should be striven for in undertaking a
university education.
Introduction
The University of North Dakota provides students opportunities to enrich their lives through a
large number of major and
minor fields of study designed both for general education and for academic specialization. This
dual objective--
non-specialized and specialized education-- ideally is reciprocal and inclusive. Each kind of
education is expected to
inform and enrich the other and to contribute to those special qualities and abilities we have
come to expect of
university graduates.
While the directions and purposes of specialized programs usually are clear, the directions and
purposes of general
education have often been left undefined. For this reason, the General Education Requirements
Committee has defined a
number of broad and specific goals to serve as guideposts for faculty proposing and teaching
courses designed to fulfill
general education requirements and also to enhance students' understanding of the purposes of a
university education.
These broad goals are rooted in a belief that a general education program should help students
develop (1) the ability
to make informed choices, (2) the ability to communicate effectively, (3) intellectual curiosity
and creativity, (4) a
continuing commitment to learning, (5) a capacity and interest in serving others, (6) a sense of
responsibility both to
specific communities and to a culturally pluralistic world, and (7) greater personal satisfaction
through access to the
larger social, political, economic, scientific, and aesthetic culture.
The specific goals have been organized into two sets. The first set is not tied directly to any
particular discipline
and gives attention to integration around such abilities as critical thinking, effective
communication, creative
thinking, recognizing relationships and understanding value formation. The second set is more
closely tied to the areas
of study included in the general education program: the social and behavioral sciences;
mathematics, science and
technology; and humanities and the fine arts.
I. Cross-Disciplinary Abilities
A. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking can provide students confidence and assurance to make informed decisions. The
processes of dissecting
and reassembling ideas can be personally liberating and serve as a powerful means for
developing one or more of the
following abilities:
1. defining a problem and selecting pertinent information for its solution;
2. recognizing stated and unstated assumptions in order to formulate useful hypotheses;
3. understanding methods of inquiry as they are used in specific disciplines;
4. using imagination and insight to expand an exploratory process;
5. questioning what one has been told; and
6. relating skills to thought and action.
B. Communication
The ability to communicate is the ability to present information, ideas, feelings, and values, in
such a way that people
may be able to understand one another. Students should learn how to communicate effectively in
as many ways as possible.
In order to communicate one must know languages. Each culture and each discipline develops it
own language, with unique
symbols, terminology, and rules for using its symbols. Students must advance their skills in the
use of English, develop
abilities to use other languages, and become acquainted with the specialized languages which
exist in many areas--
mathematics, computer science, graphics, the fine and performing arts, and others.
Communication also depends on experience in expressing oneself through language and
experience in interpreting and
appreciating what other people are trying to say. General education at the University should
provide students with
numerous opportunities to express their thoughts, feelings and values through language of all
kinds, and to learn how
well others have been able to understand them. Communication skills may be taught both by
courses specifically
emphasizing written and oral expression and interpretation and by courses emphasizing other
aspects of the arts,
sciences, and humanities.
C. Creative Thinking
While it is unrealistic to expect every student to bring into being original work of extraordinary
merit, every person
ought to be given opportunities and incentives to think creatively and to attempt creative work.
Creative thinking can
be encouraged by promoting students' ability and effort:
1. to imagine alternatives to accepted ways of solving problems or formulating questions;
2. to change categories and comprehend analogies;
3. to generate new ideas; and
4. to add details, transform, or extend ideas.
Characteristics of a teaching environment that fosters creativity include:
1. encouragement of risk taking;
2. use of a rich variety of stimuli;
3. support for curiosity, imagination and experimentation;
4. opportunities for self-expression; and
5. tolerance for ambiguity and complexity.
D. Recognizing Relationships
Focusing upon relationships among parts --emphasizes connectedness and interdependency.
Learning to see connections is vital to general education. This process emphasizes:
1. inter-relatedness; conceptualizing links between events, entities and ideas and the larger
context in which they
occur;
2. inter-dependency: conceptualizing mutual dependency or reciprocity of events, entities, or
ideas-- seeing that the
impact on one part has ramifications for the other parts and for the whole;
3. holism: conceptualizing a totality rather than considering discrete or individual elements that
only partially depict
that totality; and
4. structure: conceptualizing the underlying and relatively stable relationships that exist among
events, entities and
ideas which unify any totality.
E. Recognizing and Evaluating Choices
Education concerning values is important in general education --not seeking one right way to
behave, but recognizing
that choices cannot be avoided. Students should be aware of how many choices they make, how
these choices are based on
values, and how to make informed choices.
General education courses should deal with at least some of the following issues:
1. how human choices influence the results and dominant values of all disciplines;
2. how these choices have been made in the past;
3. how some of these choices might otherwise have been made; and
4. how choices are made, evaluated, and used to explain phenomena.
F. World Cultures
The University of North Dakota has established a World Cultures course requirement to enable
students to:
1. gain an awareness of cultures geographically or historically different from their own;
2. gain an awareness of a language other than their native language;
3. foster a spirit of international understanding;
4. understand cultural systems other than their own;
5. address multi-cultural issues, or
6. learn about race, gender, or ethnicity other than their own.
This requirement will be satisfied according to the following format:
1. World Cultures courses will be taken as part of the General Education Requirements.
2. Students will find the plus sign symbol (+) before each course that meets the World Culture
designation.
3. A minimum of three (3) credits of the General Education Requirements must meet the World
Cultures designation.
II. Disciplinary Abilities
A. The Behavioral and Social Sciences
General education should include courses that help students understand the complexities and
uncertainties of their
personal and social environment; its differing goals and expectations, agreements and conflicts,
actions and
transactions; and how students intentionally and unintentionally can change and control their
personal and social
environment and be changed and controlled by it.
Specifically, general education in the behavioral and social sciences should give students
knowledge about themselves
and their human environment at three levels: 1) how human beings behave individually; 2) how
individuals are linked to
the social environment around them; and 3) how the social environment is organized and
influenced by institutions.
For knowledge of individual behavior, general education should help students attempt to
understand how human behavior
originates, how it is integrated into a continuing and whole personality, and how it can deviate
from what is intended
or desired. To increase this understanding, general education courses should help students learn
about how individuals
think, obtain and use information, solve problems, make decisions, are motivated to act, develop
over a lifespan, and
can demonstrate a broad range of behavior.
For knowledge of the social environment, general education should help students attempt to
understand how they are
affected by the world around them, how they affect that world, and how they may be able to
make intended changes in it.
Improved understanding can come from learning about the following issues:
1. how groups of people make decisions intended to direct their own behavior and other people's,
or to change the
conditions in which they and others live;
2. how the behavior of individuals is socially organized into different patterns of coordinated
activity that
individuals are obligated to perform;
3. how the cumulative effects of individuals and their behavior have consequences for the
environment that individuals
have not intended or controlled; and
4. how people produce, expend and exchange social resources, those resources whose existence
and usefulness depend on
social interaction (such as money, authority, information, or loyalty).
General education should also help students understand how the structure, organization and
resources in the social
environment depend on social institutions such as family and household life, religion, education,
business, politics and
health. General education about social institutions should address the origins of institutional
characteristics,
variations and options, how the institutional characteristics have changed and developed, and
what the immediate and
long-term consequences of these characteristics may be.
B. Mathematics, Sciences and Technology
General education in mathematics, science, and technology should provide students with
knowledge of how human beings try
to understand and control the fundamental phenomena and processes of the universe, and do so
by means of readily
understandable, accurate descriptions and explanations.
Mathematics
General education in mathematics should help students to understand and use mathematics as:
1. an intellectual discipline concerned with such considerations as quantity and space
and their relationships.
2. a method of analyzing problems with logic and precision;
3. a way to communicate and interpret information provided by others; and
4. a continually developing tool, useful for describing and explaining phenomena.
General education in mathematics is one way to improve a students ability to think in terms of
precise and quantitative
relationships. It should develop abilities to perceive how things are logically related. It should
also enable students
to consider systematically alternative approaches to solving problems, and enable them to
appreciate the accomplishment
and elegance of solutions to problems.
General education courses should help students learn how to use mathematics as a basic tool for
working in many
different disciplines and for integrating the findings of different disciplines. Because it is
important for students to
understand that the concepts and methods of mathematics are not fixed, but are continually being
expanded, revised, and
refined, students can benefit from learning the history of mathematics, and learn how
mathematicians evaluate their
achievements and decide on their goals.
The Natural and Physical Sciences
To make a significant contribution to general education, courses from the natural and physical
sciences ought to attract
those who find science fascinating, those who approach it apprehensively, and those whose
outlook falls somewhere
between. Given the wide range of attitudes toward science, science courses designated as part of
a general education
program must necessarily differ from each other structurally and pedagogically. All should share,
however, certain
common characteristics.
Science courses intended for general education should offer students opportunities to acquire an
appreciation of science
and its contributions to society. General education courses in science should present current
information on certain
aspects of the natural world, and should require students to follow the logical, and sometimes
mathematical, reasoning
relating one structure or process to another. What differentiates science from other disciplines is
its methods and its
choice of problems. Scientists continually build and revise theoretical models to organize and
explain natural
phenomena. The theories must be logically consistent and must stand the test of experiments.
Thus, as part of their
general education, students should learn that science does not consist of a set of immutable or
unquestionable facts but
is by nature a continuing process of hypothesis and revision.
Technology
Throughout history humans have sought to apply their scientific knowledge in ways that enhance
material culture, enlarge
their capacity to produce goods and services, and defend physically their territorial and
ideological borders. This
application of scientific knowledge is what is commonly referred to as technology. Technology is
visible everywhere and
has brought enormous material benefits as well as increasingly complex social and
environmental problems. The need to
understand the tensions and conflicts that arise over the uses and consequences of technology is
as critical as the
necessity of making human choices about technology.
C. Humanities and Fine Arts
The humanities and fine arts are expected to give principal attention to the individual and
collective search for
meaning through order, values and aesthetics. By giving focus to "a search for meaning," the
general education program
encourages courses and related experiences which challenge how individual students think about
and relate to the culture
in which they live, as well as introduce them to some of the literature, the ideas, the art forms,
and the expressions
of social order which are rooted deep in history.
The search for meaning which is embodied in the humanities and fine arts is an exploration of
the many imaginative
answers given to the questions about the place of human beings in the universe by richly diverse
cultures. In this
sense, the humanities and fine arts are attempts to understand human action and thought, to find
languages which express
ideas and beliefs, hopes and fears, certainties and uncertainties. They provide opportunities for
students to see how
their present lives connect with the larger life of our culture as it has developed over time. The
humanistic tradition
embodies the age-long attempt to know and express self through works of the imagination and
intellect.
While courses in the humanities and fine arts may help students examine their own values and
ways of viewing the world,
they also provide opportunities for students to encounter the great humanistic works. By
enriching their experience with
the exploration or other ways of seeing, of recognizing meanings, and of dealing with the world,
students should
discover in the interplay the complexity of our world.
As much as possible, humanities and fine arts courses should assist students to appreciate the
roles of historians,
writers, painters, philosophers, sculptors and musicians in giving voice to human understanding
and aspiration. These
courses may also help students to comprehend the joys that come from personal expression. Thus
it is appropriate to
provide within related general education courses both opportunities to participate actively in the
humanities and arts
as creators --as writers, painters, musicians or actors-- and as audience in art exhibitions,
performances, lectures and
discussions.
Conclusion
General education as it is presented in this statement has few unique qualities. Thinkers and
writers in various ages
and cultures have voiced ideals for individuals and societies that undergird the concepts of
general education
presented. The pursuit of each of these ideals requires different, often specialized skills. The full
realization of
any one of these ideals may require a lifetime of experience to perfect, during which one
progressively hones skills,
encounters a range of practical experiences, and learns to deal with a level of complexity not
previously recognized.
Each culture has an image of the person who has had the benefit of a general education. The
goals set forth in the
preceding sections mirror the idealized vision of our university and of our contemporary society.
The following set of
courses is intended to make the achievement of these goals more attainable. Faculty and students
must create from their
commitment to general education a sense of the unity of learning.
THE NORTH DAKOTA UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
TRANSFER AGREEMENT
The North Dakota University System (NDUS) Transfer Agreement was developed to assist
students who transfer within the
NDUS. If you have completed your general education coursework at a NDUS institution and
transfer to another NDUS
institution, normally your general education requirement will have been met. If you have not
completed your generals
before transferring, most courses will be acceptable as generals at another NDUS school;
however, the courses may be
redistributed in general areas.
UND coursework generally acceptable at other NDUS schools as general education courses are
designated on the list that
follows (e.g. ND:ENGL). Please direct questions about the NDUS Transfer Agreement to the
UND Director of Admissions and
Records or the Registrar at another NDUS institution.