Structures for General Education
• The structure of a general education program determines how
students and faculty work together to achieve the goals of general
education. This work includes
faculty working with students
faculty working with faculty
students working with students
• No two general education programs are structurally identical, but
some major design elements can be abstracted from a study of many
examples. We reviewed programs from 70 schools:
20 aspirational peers
8 highly ranked comprehensive colleges
12 other colleges added for additional diversity
30 colleges from a 2003 Saint Mary’s general education study
(these last chosen to emphasize Catholic schools, women’s
colleges, landgrant schools, and distinctive liberal arts colleges)
• The structure of a general education program can define three aspects
of its work:
1) the scope of learning
2) the sequence of learning
3) the contexts for learning
• Not all programs will define all three of these aspects, but most will.
Of the three, the scope of learning is usually the most important aspect
of the program’s structure.
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Defining the Scope of Learning
• General education programs use three parameters to define the scope
of learning:
1) Intellectual skills or competences to be mastered
2) Academic disciplines in the arts and sciences to be grasped
3) Specific Knowledge to be gained
• These parameters are not mutually exclusive. Most general education
programs include more than one, though one is usually central.
• In Saint Mary’s current general education program
The W requirement is a skill parameter
The Ways of Knowing requirements are disciplinary parameters
The PHIL 110 and RLST 101 requirements are, in practice,
partly knowledge parameters
• A single student learning outcome (for example, competence in
mathematics) might be defined by any of the three parameters
1) Intellectual skill: “Competence in Quantitative Reasoning”
2) Academic discipline: “successful completion of a course in
mathematics” or “successful completion of a course in
mathematics or a quantitative natural or social science course”
3) Specific Knowledge: “successful completion of a course in
calculus” or “successful completion of a course in statistics”
• The way a general education program defines its scope will have
implications for the way it defines its sequences (if any) and its contexts
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Defining the Sequence of Learning
• Some general education programs do not define a sequence of learning
• Most general education programs define an introductory component
Skills requirements are often designated for the first semester,
first year, or first two years of college. These most typically
address writing, but they may also include quantitative skills, oral
skills, research skills, and foreign language skills.
Knowledge requirements are sometimes designated for the first
two years. These are most typically courses in religion or culture.
• Some general education programs define a concluding component.
This is usually either an “integrative capstone” course or an
independent project.
• A few general education programs define a sequence of learning that
includes all four years of study.
• Saint Mary’s current general education program does not formally
employ a sequence for most of its structure, although advising guides
students towards fulfilling some requirements early in their college
career. The Advanced W requirement and the Senior Comprehensive
requirements are its only formally sequenced requirements.
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Defining the Contexts for Learning
• All general education programs define contexts for learning, at least
implicitly, but some do not create a context that distinguishes courses
suitable for general education from other courses in the curriculum
• Most general education programs create courses with lower
enrollment, aimed at first-year students for skills-oriented learning.
Many programs teach writing in such contexts
Many programs have first-year seminars that introduce a variety
of skills needed for success in college.
• Some general education programs create special contexts for
knowledge-oriented learning. These special contexts are often outside
the disciplinary/departmental structure that defines majors.
Cultural knowledge courses are usually outside the disciplines.
Capstones are sometimes outside the disciplines, sometimes in.
• A few general education programs define contexts that are outside the
traditional classroom structure altogether.
They may require students to attend cultural, intellectual,
community-building, or religious events at the college.
They may include an optional residential component that makes a
special connection between “living and learning.”
They may include an experiential learning requirement.
• Saint Mary’s defines a context for its W requirement, but it does not
otherwise distinguish the context of general education from other
educational contexts.
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Types of General Education Program Structures
• Once the role of a general education program’s structure is
understood as defining its scope, sequence, and contexts, three major
types of programs can be identified.
• The first common type bases its structure on distribution requirements
that define the scope of general education. These are organized by the
same three parameters that define the scope of general education:
1) According to academic disciplines in the arts and sciences.
2) According to intellectual skills
3) According to the knowledge to be gained
Although some programs use just one principle, most are hybrids.
• The second common type is a core curricular structure. Cores vary
considerably, but each is based on a commitment to knowledge, skills,
or experience that should be held in common by all students. Core
curricula can be grouped by the scope of what they make common:
1) Comprehensive cores define specifically the whole of general
education, sequencing all four years of a student’s education and
creating many distinctive contexts. These are found most
frequently in Protestant schools.
2) Introductory cores define a common basis of knowledge,
experience, and skill to be acquired during the first year or two of
college. A distributional structure follows the core.
3) Distributive cores share characteristics of both core and
distributional types. They specify knowledge more than do
distribution structures, but use few common, contextually distinct
courses. These are found most frequently in Catholic schools.
• A few schools have unique programs that fit neither type.
• Saint Mary’s current structure is at base a distributive core plus skill
components. It also resembles a disciplinary distribution structure.
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Historical Development of the Types
• The distribution requirement type, organized according to academic
disciplines, has been the preferred structure for the last thirty or more
years at independent colleges, about the length of time a similar
structure has been in place at Saint Mary’s. This type was preferred to
a knowledge-based core curriculum type for several reasons:
1) It gave students more choice
2) It contributed to a shift in focus from knowledge to skills while
retaining a knowledge element in the discipline’s subject
3) It conformed nicely to the increasing specialization and
professionalization of the professoriate.
A fair number of institutions retained an introductory core or a set of
common courses (as at Saint Mary’s), but the comprehensive core
became quite rare. Some institutions did away with a structure for
general education altogether, or took a more radically contextual
approach.
• Over the thirty years that this structure has been the preferred type, it
has been subject to three widely-implemented alterations:
1) Beginning in the 1980s, skills components were added,
especially for writing
2) Beginning in the 1990s, special contexts for first-year students
were added, usually first-year seminars
3) Beginning in the 1990s, knowledge-based requirements, usually
focused on multicultural (or, less often, interdisciplinary) understanding
were added.
The effect of these changes has been to somewhat obscure the original
elegance of the distribution requirements while shoring up aspects of
education that, it was found, could not be delivered well within the
context of the disciplinary classroom.
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Recent Developments
• More recently, some colleges have undertaken more radical reforms of
general education to move away from distribution requirements
organized according to the disciplines. These reforms have been of
several kinds:
1) A shift from a disciplinary organization of distribution
requirements to one based on skills and/or knowledge
2) Implementation of a comprehensive core curriculum
3) Implementation of an interdisciplinary, introductory core
4) A turn to educational contexts outside of traditional classrooms
• Reasons for these reforms include
A desire to clarify and streamline the increasingly unwieldy
structure that resulted from many additions to the disciplinary
distribution requirements
A desire to break out of disciplinary boundaries that fail to meet
the developmental needs of students or the demands of an
increasingly interconnected global society
A desire to strengthen liberal education by making it more
intentional or by connecting it more strongly to students’ lives.
A desire or need make general education more assessable
• Our concerns about general education at Saint Mary’s are thus related
in many ways to concerns felt elsewhere in higher education. In
considering the reform of general education, we should consider
whether we ought to restructure our program, either by reforming the
current structure or by replacing it with a different structure that might
belong to one of the other common types or that might be truly unique
to us.
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Interesting Examples of Each Type
Disciplinary Distribution Requirements.
Kalamazoo College (aspirational peer), Linfield College (a strong comprehensive
college), Mount Holyoke (a women’s college and aspirational peer)
Skills-based Distribution Requirements.
Earlham College (aspirational peer & pioneer in this type of design), Goucher (women’s
college), Rocky Mountain (strong comprehensive college, Gettysburg (aspirational peer)
Knowledge-based Distribution Requirements.
Marquette (distributive core re-imagined as knowledge requirements at a Catholic
university), Purdue (landgrant university, Sweet Briar (women’s college)
Comprehensive Core.
Berea (strong comprehensive college), Bluffton (comprehensive college), Calvin (strong
comprehensive college)
Introductory Core.
Occidental (liberal arts college), Scripps (women’s college and aspirational peer),
Sewanee (liberal arts college), Whitman (aspirational peer)
Distributive Core.
Marquette (distributive core re-imagined as knowledge distribution requirements at a
Catholic university), Saint Anselm (traditional core at a Catholic college), Villanova
(distributive core combined with a complex skills structure at a Catholic university)
Unique Structures.
Antioch (liberal arts college), Grinnell (liberal arts college), Evergreen State (public
liberal arts college), Warren Wilson (liberal arts college)
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