Institutional Academic Requirements

I. FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS

Students may be required to complete the following:

This course is required for all incoming freshman (including transfer students) with 23 hours or less who have not completed an equivalent course at another institution.

This course must be taken during the first semester of the freshman year at Dickinson State University unless the student is a mid-year transfer, then the course will be taken during the second semester of the freshman year.

The skills and knowledge imparted through this course will help students survive the freshman year successfully and provide a firm foundation for their future academic career.

The course will help students adjust to college in their academic, personal, and social lives. It will help to develop and strengthen decision-making, problem solving, critical thinking, and career exploration skills.

II. GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

In alignment with Dickinson State University's mission, the General Education Program both complements and transcends individual academic emphases. Through the General Education curriculum, students demonstrate the following proficiencies: effective communication, critical and creative thinking, citizenship, and integrative learning. In meeting these proficiencies, students mature into independent life-long learners.    

In addition to major and minor requirements, all four-year degree students are required to complete a minimum 39 credits of general education course work within the three curriculum groups outlined below. Selected lower division courses numbered 100 and 200 are used to fulfill general education requirements. Exceptions to this rule are the upper division courses numbered at the 300 level approved in the general education curriculum.

Note: Students seeking a degree from Dickinson State University, who have already earned a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university, will be considered complete with respect to their general education requirements. However, specific general education classes which are also considered program requirements with respect to specific majors for licensure or certification program requirements will need to be completed before the degree will be granted.

Any course substitutions/waivers related to general education requirements must be approved by the Department Chair that supervises the specific course or group.

General Education Learning Outcomes

Communication

Definition: Communication is the sharing of ideas through written, oral, and symbolic language. It involves the active expression and reception of ideas through multiple technologies, physical and spoken language, mixed texts, data, and images.

Goal Statement: Students will apply multiple conventions of expression to achieve shared understanding of meaning.

Student Outcomes:

• Adapt modes and styles of writing to different purposes, audiences, media, and contexts
• Develop effective pre-writing, researching, drafting, revising, proofreading, and editing processes
• Utilize writing technologies crucial to performance in today’s writing-intensive professions
• Organize and convey a central message via oral communication, using supporting evidence and adapting language and delivery for audience
• Initiate and negotiate in a collaborative setting by listening to, building upon, verifying, or challenging others’ ideas and conclusions

 Citizenship

Definition: Citizenship involves individuals attuned to the multiple perspectives inherent in our socially and culturally diverse world. Citizens are cognizant of their own health and well-being, demonstrate an understanding of the impact one has on the arenas outside of the self, and engage with complex, authentic issues both locally and globally.

Goal Statement: Students will progressively maintain their personal health and well-being and consider diverse social-cultural perspectives as they integrate and evaluate approaches to local and global issues.

Student Outcomes:

• Identify and incorporate strategies leading to individual health and well-being
• Predict and analyze the effects that one’s decisions have on the well-being of others
• Integrate political, social, and cultural structures, utilizing multiple viewpoints, to contribute to a community’s values and practices
• Apply technology effectively, safely and ethically in an evolving society

 Critical and Creative Thinking

Definition: Critical and creative thinking are intellectual skills in which knowledge and literacy are used to process information, construct understanding, apply knowledge, solve problems, and conduct inquiry.

Goal Statement: Upon completion of the General Education curriculum, students integrate critical and creative thinking skills while gaining knowledge of the Arts and Humanities, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences.

Student Outcomes:

• Process information by collecting, generating, organizing, retrieving, recognizing underlying assumptions, or validating evidence.
• Construct understanding by analyzing, synthesizing, revealing meaning, or validating knowledge.
• Apply knowledge by performing, modeling, being creative in a new context, or validating results.
• Solve problems by identifying components, structuring information, anticipating consequences, or creating and improving solutions.
• Conduct inquiry by formulating research questions, obtaining evidence, explaining knowledge, depicting knowledge, validating or evaluating scholarship.