General Education Program Overview

The Virginia State University (VSU) General Education Program is founded on the principles of academic excellence and personal growth and comprises the core curriculum for all baccalaureate degrees offered by the institution. Driven by the University’s Mission and Principles, the program endeavors to develop engaged, enlightened, productive citizens in a changing world.

The liberal arts emphasis of VSU’s General Education Program is designed to foster dispositions that value lifelong learning, personal responsibility, integrity, creative expression, and the ethic of service.

General Education Program Provisions, Requirements, and Courses
 

The General Education (GE) course framework represents a balanced menu of courses designed to enhance core skill sets, including synthesis and analysis of information; problem solving through structures, organizations and systems; understanding of global/cultural and historical contexts; research; and effective communication skills. Students must satisfy the University's assessment requirements to document their acquisition of these core skill sets and their level of achievement of the University's GE student learning outcomes.

Provisions and Requirements

1. The General Education program requires the successful completion of 33 semester hours in the following areas:
   1. English (Composition) - 6 semester hours
   2. History - 3 semester hours
   3. Humanities - 3 semester hours
   4. Global Studies - 3 semester hours
   5. Literature - 3 semester hours
   6. Health/Wellness - 2 semester hours
   7. Mathematics - 6 semester hours
   8. Social Science - 3 semester hours
   9. Natural Science and Lab - 4 semester hours
2. Students may use one course simultaneously to satisfy a requirement for general education and their major discipline; however students may not use one course to satisfy more than one general education course requirement.
3. The minimum grade required for successful completion of English 110/112 and English 111/113 (Composition I and II) is “C.”
4. Departments (majors) may choose courses from the limited menus or allow students to choose.

ENGLISH

GLOBAL STUDIES 

HISTORY

HUMANITIES

LITERATURE

MATHEMATICS

Social Science

Wellness/Health

Institution-Level Student Learning Outcomes (ISLOs)
 

Based upon the University's Mission and Principles, the following ILSLOs comprise the foundation for the General Education Program courses:

 I. Written Communication Skills 

DEFINITION: Written communication is defined as the ability to develop, convey, and exchange ideas in writing, as appropriate to a given context and audience.
After completing the General Education Program requirements, students will be able to:

1. Order sentences and paragraphs to communicate central points with logical connections and minimal grammar and punctuation errors.
2. Express ideas through the written word appropriate to a specific audience, purpose, rhetorical situation, and genre.
3. Write adhering to discipline-specific attribution standards, including in-text citation and reference.
4. Articulate ideas using logical support, including informed opinions and facts, and their interpretations to develop the students' ideas, avoiding fallacies, biased language, and inappropriate tone. 

 II. Critical Thinking

DEFINITION: Critical thinking is the ability to use information, ideas, and arguments from relevant perspectives to make sense of complex issues and solve problems. Critical thinking also includes locating, evaluating, interpreting, and combining information to reach well-reasoned conclusions or solutions.

After completing the General Education Program requirements, students will be able to:

1. Recognize connections and relationships among ideas, data, and information.
2. Identify assumptions by evaluating conflicting narratives and interpretations.
3. Demonstrate proficiency in problem-solving strategies and skills by determining a process and solutions to a real-world problem.
4. Construct arguments based on logical analysis of evidence and sound reasoning.
5. Evaluate their ideas and the ideas of others, including identifying biases and fallacies, both logical and rhetorical. 

 III. Scientific Literacy

DEFINITION: Scientific Literacy is the ability to analyze and apply basic scientific principles and methods of scientific research and inquiry to make informed decisions and engage with issues related to the natural, physical, and social world.

After completing the General Education Program requirements, students will be able to:

1. Identify the credibility and reliability of scientific sources by distinguishing among peer-reviewed articles, popular media, and pseudoscience.
2. Compare different scientific methods of analysis and investigate their use in evaluating empiric information.
3. Discuss the ethical, legal, economic, social, cultural, and environmental implications of scientific research and practices. 
4. Apply scientific reasoning skills to analyze and solve problems, interpret scientific data, draw conclusions, and make evidence-based decisions.

 IV. Quantitative Reasoning

After completing the General Education Program requirements, students will be able to:

1. Identify quantitative information encountered in daily life or within the discipline to make informed decisions.
2. Explain numerical information orally or through written communication.
3. Interpret equations, graphs, diagrams, tables, figures, and/or words to draw relevant conclusions and make predictions.
4. Use technological tools to create graphs, tables, figures, and equations from numerical information. 
5. Calculate basic mathematical operations in problem-solving, such as arithmetic, algebra, and basic statistics.

 V. Global Cultural Literacy

DEFINITION: Global Cultural Literacy is a critical analysis of and an engagement with complex, interdependent global systems and legacies (such as natural, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political) and their implications for people’s lives and the earth’s sustainability. Through global learning, students should 1) become informed, open-minded, and responsible people who are attentive to diversity across the spectrum of differences, 2) seek to understand how their actions affect both local and global communities, and 3) address the world’s most pressing and enduring issues collaboratively and equitably”, AAC&U. 

After completing the General Education Program requirements, students will be able to:

1. Explain the impact of culture on one’s worldview and behavior, including assumptions, biases, prejudices, and stereotypes.
2. Discuss diverse perspectives on an ethical issue that has global implications.
3. Analyze relationships or connections between a cultural product or practice and the perspective of the society that produced it.
4. Develop a project within the global community that engages cultures other than their own.

 VI. Civic Engagement

DEFINITION: Civic engagement is defined as an array of knowledge, abilities, values, attitudes, and behaviors that in combination, allow individuals to contribute to the civic life of their communities. It may include, among other things, exploration of one’s role and responsibilities in society; knowledge of and ability to engage with political systems and processes; and/or course-based or extra-curricular efforts to identify and address issues of public or community concern, particularly as they address the African-American community.

After completing the General Education Program requirements, students will be able to:

1. Describe political systems and how they function.
2. Articulate their own civic identity and how one participates as an informed citizen in a democratic society.
3. Propose potential solutions to civic, social, environmental, historical, or economic challenges to meet community needs.
4. Evaluate the impacts of political or corporate policies on individuals, communities, and the environment.