General Education Requirements

Rationale for General Education

General Education at SUU reflects a long tradition in American higher education, affirmed by accrediting agencies, to assist students in becoming self-reliant scholars and versatile individuals. This tradition ensures that students achieve university-level skills in writing, speech, and mathematics; encounter the fields of the humanities and fine arts; understand American institutions; become acquainted with the methods and topics of science; think about the values of their own and other cultures; and consider differences and interrelationships among people as well as fields of knowledge.

Pursuing a bachelor’s degree enables students to pursue skills or technical knowledge for a job, as well as to explore human issues, enhance curiosity, develop new ideas, expand mental horizons, enhance logical coherence and insight, and participate more intelligently, sensitively and deliberately in shaping communities and the world.

Students should regard the combination of general education courses, major and minor courses, and elective courses that they may take as related parts of a whole, rather than competing parts. Undergraduate students have a unique opportunity to pursue intellectual and creative interests that they may have and to explore a range of subject matter to discover what interests them and what does not. Studies of broad fields of knowledge, coupled with the development of necessary life skills, help students gain perspective in their own lives plus promote the general societal welfare.

Finally, general education must keep pace with changes in knowledge by staying alert to connections between traditional disciplines and technology. Likewise, general education must inform students that the world is perceived in different ways. Hence, students must acquire appropriate investigative, interpretative, and communicative competencies to intelligently and humanely come to terms with a diverse world. Through this pattern of learning, citizens acquire knowledge useful for guiding societies on a sustainable course.

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