The Tier III courses are therefore the culminating academic experience outside the major. They are designed to engage students in significant writing and research projects apart from their familiar disciplinary boundaries. The Tier III course is designed to provide an opportunity for students to pursue, in modest ways, a course of study in a second area while they are developing their major or professional knowledge. Their purpose is to give students a substantial acquaintance with a body of thought and additional techniques for constructing knowledge. Working successfully in a scholarly area outside one s major requires increased critical thinking and cognitive ability, as well as ability to adapt and apply concepts broadly.
Students experience little intellectual unity in their undergraduate course work.
The Tier III course, if properly funded and emphasized by the university, can support the advancement of the general student population in ways very useful to it, both in careers and apart from careers. Students began to take Tier III in large numbers in 1998-99, and new courses are still being reviewed for this function. The Tier III requirement was not implemented as an add-on in terms of the total number of hours for General Education. It replaced one of the 3-hour courses in social sciences and humanities. The courses were conceived as integrating and unifying portions at least of that body of material.