Utah Code § 53H-4-307.5 — Utah Code / Title 53H / Chapter 53H-4 / § 53H-4-307.5
§ 53H-4-307.5. Center for Civic Excellence -- Curriculum.
Status: in_force

(1) The center shall: (a) govern the general education program and general education courses at Utah State University; and (b) ensure that: (i) the general education program aligns with the general education program requirements described in board policy; and (ii) there is general education transferability to and from Utah State University and other institutions within the Utah System of Higher Education. (2) The center is founded on the following principles, values, and purposes: (a) a commitment to viewpoint diversity and civil discourse, ensuring that students understand opposing points of view and can contribute in the public square in civil and productive ways; (b) the development of program outcomes and courses that engage students in enduring questions of meaning, purpose, and value; and (c) the cultivation in students of the durable skills necessary to thrive in educational, social, political, economic, and personal contexts. (3) The center shall ensure, within the general education program: (a) a cap of 30 credits; (b) the integration of six written and oral communication credits with three humanities credits; (c) that three three-credit courses in the humanities: (i) engage with perennial questions about the human condition, the meaning of life, and the nature of social and moral lives; (ii) emphasize foundational thinking and communication skills through engagement with primary texts predominantly from Western civilization, such as: (A) the intellectual contributions of ancient Israel, ancient Greece, and Rome; and (B) the rise of Christianity, medieval Europe, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and post-Enlightenment; (iii) include texts for each course that are historically distributed from antiquity to the present from figures with lasting literary, philosophical, and historical influence, such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Lao Tzu, Cicero, Maimonides, Boethius, Shakespeare, Mill, Woolf, and Achebe; and (iv) are organized around themes central to the preservation and flourishing of a free society, such as the moral life, happiness, liberty, equality and justice, and goodness and beauty; and (d) that one three-credit course in American institutions: (i) engages students with the major debates and ideas that inform the historical development of the republican form of government of the United States of America; (ii) focus on the founding principles of American government, economics, and history, such as natural rights, liberty, equality, constitutional self-government, and market systems; and (iii) use primary source material, such as: (A) the Magna Carta, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers; and (B) material from thinkers, such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Adam Smith, John Locke, Montesquieu, and Alexis de Tocqueville. (4) The vice-provost overseeing the center: (a) shall ensure that the center: (i) no less than seven days before the first day of class for a given semester or other academic term during which the institution offers a course, makes available to the public on the institution's website a syllabus for each section of the courses in the humanities described in Subsection (3) that: (A) provide the section number; (B) provides a brief description of each major assignment and examination; (C) lists any required or recommended reading; (D) provides a general description of the subject matter of each lecture or discussion; (E) is accessible from the home page of the institution's website by use of not more than three links; (F) is searchable by keywords and phrases; and (G) is accessible to the public without requiring registration, use of a user name and password, or another method of user identification; (ii) continues to make the information described in Subsection (4)(a) available on the center's website until at least the second anniversary of the date on which the center initially posted the information; and (iii) updates the information described in Subsection (4)(a) as soon as practicable after the information changes; and (b) may assign duties under this Subsection (4) to one or more administrative employees.