General Education means something broader than a core curriculum. Its focus should not be simply on course requirements, but rather on trying to assure that the total undergraduate experience enables students to achieve minimal standards in advanced intellectual skills, breadth of knowledge, and integrative competencies. Breadth of knowledge entails broad acquaintance with the major fields of learning and understanding of the basic principles and general content of some of them. It should also provide a basic understanding and appreciation of the ways we gain knowledge and analyze natural, behavioral, and cultural phenomena. Besides broadening intellectual horizons, such knowledge also can lay the foundation necessary for entry into more specialized studies, whether in the major, upper-level electives or in the world of work following graduation.
Integrative competency requires the development of a capacity for evaluation and synthesis.
The undergraduate curriculum provides excellent training in analysis, but problems in life and work tend to be multidimensional and need to be approached from a synthesis of perspectives. To be considered educated in today's society, students need to acquire increasingly complex intellectual skills. The ability to think and communicate clearly and cogently, and to be able to use sophisticated analytical tools and quantitative techniques, is daily becoming more demanding and essential if we are to solve problems, gain access to new ideas, or participate meaningfully in contemporary society and culture. Similarly, a broad and coherent if general knowledge of the rapidly expanding fields of learning is becoming urgent if we are to prepare for the personal and social challenges of change in the employment market or in social mores, let alone dealing with the growing range of local and world problems. Moreover, the development of a synoptic understanding, informed moral judgment, and heightened aesthetic appreciation is becoming vital to becoming a mature, productive, and sensitive citizen.