Juniata College
Philosophy of General Education
Mission Statement of General Education
Broad Mission
The general education curriculum at Juniata College is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in a fulfilling life in the global community. The foundation for an active and engaged life in our interdisciplinary and multicultural world is provided through our broad and comprehensive Liberal Arts distribution and common experiences courses. In addition, our general education curriculum supports our students’ personal and professional growth by developing their ability to think critically and communicate effectively.
How the curriculum addresses the mission OPTION 1
The general education curriculum at Juniata College is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in a fulfilling life in the global community. As such, students are introduced to ways of thinking about the world through our broad and comprehensive Liberal Arts distribution requirements: Fine Arts, International, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Natural Sciences. To further enhance knowledge and skills, in-depth study is required in three of these five content areas.
Stu dents’ intellectual, personal, and professional growth are enhanced through the completion of the liberal arts distribution as well as common experience courses (College Writing Seminar, Interdisciplinary
Colloquium, Cultural Analysis) that are designed to enhance communication (writing, speaking, listening, and reading) as well as critical thinking skills (which can include information literacy, analytical reasoning, scientific reasoning, problem solving, and/or argument building). Skills required for active participation in an interdisciplinary and global community are further developed through our Communication (Writing and
Speech), technology (IA), quantitative skills requirements.
How the curriculum addresses the mission OPTION 2
The general education curriculum at Juniata College is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in a fulfilling life in the global community. As such, students are introduced to academic content areas central to our foundation as a liberal arts institution: Fine Arts,
International, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Natural Sciences. To further enhance knowledge and skills, indepth study is required in three of these five content areas. Students’ intellectual, personal, and professional growth are enhanced through the completion of the liberal arts distribution as well as common experience courses (College Writing Seminar, Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Cultural Analysis) that are designed to enhance communication (writing, speaking, listening, and reading) as well as critical thinking skills (which can include information literacy, analytical reasoning, scientific reasoning, problem solving, and/or argument building). Skills required for active participation in an interdisciplinary and global community are further developed through our Communication (Writing and Speech), technology (IA), quantitative skills requirements.
Goals of General Education
1. Enhance Communication Skills
Effective communication skills are essential for leading fulfilling lives of service and ethical leadership in the global community. Consequently, students receive instruction in effective communication through numerous courses during their tenure at Juniata College. These courses include CWS and a minimum of four courses designated as CS or CW. CW courses are designed to explicitly focus on the teaching of writing. CS courses are focused on the development of rhetorical skills required for effective and creative speech. As part of the common experiences of the general education curriculum, students are required to complete an IC course, which have explicit goals related to student’s writing and discussion skills, and a CA course, which must incorporate assignments that enhance the writing skills de veloped during students’ first year of study. Information Access, a common experience course of the general education curriculum,

provides students with a foundation of information literacy by building competency in the use of computing, network, and library technologies.
2. Higher Order Thinking Skills
Active participation in a global and interdisciplinary society requires higher order thinking skills such as critical and creative thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, synthesis of conclusions, implications, and consequences, and etc. In the general education curriculum, these skills are emphasized in the common experience courses of IC and CA. IC courses are designed to enhance students’ understanding of the relationships between theory and practice in different disciplines. In addition to writing and discussion skills, a key focus of IC courses is on the development of critical reading skills. Consequently, reading and writing assignments in these courses are designed to build students’ abilities to critically read, analyze, and evaluate the materials. In CA courses, students are introduced to the basic concepts and methods of cultural analysis. The CA courses are designed to develop student’s understanding of human culture and the ways that culture affects perceptions of human life and the broader world. Students’ quantitative skills are enhanced through the Quantitative Skills component of the general education curriculum. Quantitative reasoning skills are enhanced through these mathematical and statistical focused courses. The foundation for information literacy skills are established through the common experience course of Information Access. Through this course, students gain competency in the use of computing, network and library technologies at Juniata.
3. Develop knowledge about and ways of understanding the world.
Through the study of the fine arts, international studies, social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences, students develop knowledge and skills that enable them to understand and engage in an interdisciplinary and global community. To further enhance their knowledge and skills, students are required to complete in-depth study (i.e., complete a 300 or 400-level course or a course that requires the completion of a pre-requisite course) in three of the five areas outlined.
Courses designated as Q, QS, or QM provide students with a foundation in quantitative reasoning focused on either computational or statistical skill sets. Through the CA requirement, students unde rstanding of human culture and of the ways that culture affects one’s perceptions of human life and of the world are developed. In IC courses students’ knowledge about and ways of understanding the world are expanded by exploring the relationships between theory and practice in different disciplines and of how the insights provided by an interdisciplinary approach can have a positive effect on individuals' personal and public lives.
General Education Curriculum
KNOWLEDGE BREADTH
Liberal Arts: Distribution
The intent of the distribution requirement is to assist students in broadening their education. This breadth helps students to develop and retain the intellectual flexibility necessary to cope with their rapidly changing environment.
Fine Arts (F) examine the interaction of elements within art forms, the ways in which these interactions produce artistic expression, and the conventions of the particular artistic disciplines. In these courses, students expand their expressive abilities and/or sharpen their skills at formal analysis (such as how to experience a work of art).
International Studies (I): “I” courses may study global issues in one of three ways. 1. The course introduces students to the history, art, literature, philosophy, or civic life of people of different nationalities.
2. The course requires students to think and express themselves in a language other than English. 3. The course examines international social, material, cultural, or intellectual exchange at a systemic level.
Social Science (S): Social scientists strive to understand a wide range of human behavior, from the formation of the self to the interaction of nations. Knowledge is acquired from systematic study, using a

diverse set of scientific methods including laboratory experiments, field observation, survey work, and quantitative and qualitative ethnographic analyses, as well as insight acquired through experience.
Humanities (H): The humanities use methods such as textual interpretation, historical analysis, and philosophical investigation to ask fundamental questions of value, purpose, and meaning in a rigorous and systematic way. The humanities teach us to think critically and imaginatively, informed by the knowledge of how those questions are (or have been) understood in different times, places, and cultures.
Natural Sciences (N): Courses in natural and mathematical sciences enable students to engage with the methods of exploring the processes of the natural world. These methods include observation, generation of models and hypotheses, and analysis of models that pertain to the natural world, and empirical testing.
COMMON EXPERIENCES
College Writing Seminar (CWS)
 Introduces students to the diverse modes of thought and communication that characterize the college experience
 Will help them think and express themselves more effectively in and out of the classroom.
 Focuses primarily on reading and writing skills, and integrates instruction of computer and library research skills and attention to study skills, career planning, and other issues relevant to first-year
 college students.
Interdisciplinary Colloquia (IC)
 Emphasize reading, discussion, and writing in an interdisciplinary setting.
 Include serious consideration of the relationships between theory and practice in different disciplines and of how the insights provided by an interdisciplinary approach can have a positive effect on individuals' personal and public lives.
Common Skills of IC:
 Writing – The course must be designed to strengthen the ability to think and write analytically.
 Discussion Skills – Discussion must be included as part of the course grade and some structured feedback on discussion skills should be offered. To promote this skill development, IC courses will be required to include discussion sessions.
 Critical Reading Skills – The course must include the reading and analysis of both primary sources (texts and other artifacts) and secondary sources, specifically scholarly expository writing in the form of monographs and/or essays. These activities must be designed to develop students’ ability to reflect on both the concepts and the sources in writing.
Cultural Analysis (CA)
 To develop students’ understanding of human culture and of the ways that culture affects one’s perceptions of human life and of the world. Students will encounter and analyze different forms of cultural expression. Courses will provide a basic familiarity with some concepts and methods of cultural analysis.
 Deal with human culture in the variety of its philosophic, literary, artistic, economic, social, political, scientific, and other forms.
 Focus on how relationships between ideas and institutions have shaped societies, and the thoughts and behaviors of individuals and groups.
 Build on the skills of insightful reading, analysis, and writing acquired in the first year of study.
 Students will make use of both primary (textual or other artifacts) and secondary sources.
These primary and secondary works will provide the raw materials for a synthetic project.
 Any project must be designed to demonstrate the student’s capacity for independent research and critical thinking. Students will be expected to show an awareness of their own presuppositions and of the possibilities and limitations of their methods.

SKILLS
Communication Skills
Writing (CW)
 CW courses are intended to help students develop, compose, organize, revise, and edit their own writing.
 They develop a student's abilities to identify and define a thesis as well as to collect, organize, present, and analyze evidence and documentation to disseminate knowledge.
 Develop and assess writing skills & explicitly address the mechanics of writing and editing
Speech (CS)
 To develop rhetorical skills necessary for effective and creative speech in individual, group or public presentation. This may include one or more of the following: speech design and delivery, listening, negotiation, leadership, persuasion, collaboration, or decision making;
Information Access (IA)
 Ensures competency in the use of computing, network and library technologies at Juniata
College.
Quantitative Component (Q)
 There are two parts to the Quantitative Skills component: a statistical part, and a mathematical part. o Courses that satisfy the statistical part should contain elementary statistics topics such as averages, standard deviation and other measures of dispersion, as well as interpretation of data, tables, graphs, and some probability. o Courses that satisfy the mathematical part must use a combination of algebraic, graphical, and numerical reasoning. Courses with quantitative skills components necessarily involve the use of appropriate technology. Such courses should teach students how to translate problems into mathematical language, how to solve the mathematical problems, and how to interpret the solutions.