Students and faculty are encouraged to nurture all other General Education skills and interests as opportunity and motivation allow. These unique contributions to General Education by individual faculty members and departments contribute to the goal of diversity among faculty and students. As a result of the self-study evaluation in 1987, Sinclair Community College developed a General Education core of approximately 20 quarter hours covering a range of disciplines and required in all degree programs of the college. These remaining components of General Education are vitally important to groups and individuals across the campus and are thought of as a reservoir to be tapped for future growth of General Education at the college. Seventeen components of General Education were identified and are presented in this table with some elaborative concepts.
Initial emphasis is limited to three components in the spirit of realism and continuous improvement.
When the college community can document that graduates have achieved desired outcomes in those three areas, other components can be readily added. This series of courses is incorporated into the curriculum plan for each program of study. It is obvious that the other components of General Education on the list of 17 are important both conceptually and to significant numbers of students, faculty and administrators. Therefore, the college will continue to encourage and nurture activities at personal, departmental and college-wide levels which focus on development of the other 14 components of General Education. The reader may wish to reflect back on the two paintings presented earlier in this report for a representation of the vision behind this approach which attempts to specify a focus and, at the same time, encourage diversity among faculty and students.