Shared Futures

California State University Long Beach

The General Education program at California State University Long Beach comprises 51 units of a 120 unit graduation requirement.  The GE program conforms with requirements stipulated by the State of California and by the twenty-three campus California State University System.  Students may complete most of their General Education requirements prior to transfer, however a minimum of nine upper-division General Education units must be earned at CSULB.

The General Education Program is organized into five categories of study which mandate the following distributions of study:

Category A
(22 course offerings)
Communication in the English Language and Critical Thinking — 9 units to include:
1. One approved course in written English;
2. One approved course in oral communication or a combination of oral and written communication, to include an understanding of the process of communication and experience in communication;
3. One approved course in critical thinking, designed to develop the ability to reason clearly and logically and to analyze the thinking of others.

Category B
(53 course offerings)
Physical Universe — 12 units to include:
1. At least six units of inquiry into the physical universe and its life forms to include one approved course in the life sciences and one approved course in the physical sciences; both must involve laboratory experience;
2. At least three units of study in mathematical concepts and quantitative reasoning; approved courses foster an understanding of mathematical concepts rather than merely providing instruction in basic computational skills;
3. Another three units as necessary, selected from approved courses, to achieve a minimum of 12 units.

Category C
(219 course offerings)
Humanities and the Arts — 12 units to include:
1. At least three units from approved fine arts courses;
2. At least six units from approved courses to include courses in at least two of the following areas:
a. literature
b. philosophy, and
c. foreign languages.
3. Another three units as necessary, selected from approved courses to achieve a minimum of 12 units.

Category D
(221 course offerings)
Social and Behavioral Sciences and Their Historical Backgrounds — 15 units to include:
1. Citizenship:
a. Three units selected from courses in U.S. History;
b. Three units selected from courses in U.S. Constitution and Ideals, including state and local government.
2. Additional Social and Behavioral Sciences:  At least 9 units from the approved courses.

Category E
(56 course offerings)
Self-Integration — 3 units:
At least three units selected from approved courses which facilitate understanding of the human being as an integrated physiological, psychological, and social organism.

As part of this program of study, students must complete a minimum of three units in course work designated as meeting the “Human Diversity” requirement (focused on multi-cultural aspects of United States society) and three units of the “Global Issues” requirement (courses which must engage in systematic comparisons between societies or emphasize global systems.)  The Human Diversity and Global Issues requirements may be met within any of the five General Education categories. We offer 87 Global designation courses.

In addition to these distribution requirements, the GE program is structured into three tiers:

• The thirteen unit “Foundations” component, pre-requisite to further study and required of all transfer students prior to matriculation, mandates completion of English composition, speech, critical thinking, and mathematics course work in addition to the one-unit University 100 course, an introduction to university study.
• The “Explorations” component of the program allows students to choose from an exceptionally broad array of General Education course offerings.
• The nine-unit “Capstone” requirement.

Proposed changes:

Proposed revisions to the existing CSULB General Education program to emphasize global learning best conceptualized within this three-tiered hierarchy of learning:

• Foundations: New curriculum will be required to infuse global perspective into the 13-unit Foundations component of the GE program.  One possibility is the creation of a globally-oriented course (or courses) under Category E, a category often met in the first year by entering freshmen.  Another is the creation of Critical Thinking courses that infuse Global Perspectives.  In any case, proposed curricular changes cannot be mandated, they must be proposed as alternatives to existing course options.  In addition, it will be critical to emphasize communication and articulation with the community colleges.  Since nearly half of our graduating students arrive by transfer, any curricular innovations must be duplicated at the community college level to be appropriately effective.
• Explorations: The exceptionally broad array of courses that make up the Explorations component of the GE program is an institutional given.  While additional courses may be proposed to meet critical needs in the Global Issues context, departments will not be mandated to meet particular requirements, and student will not be mandated to follow a specific model of globally-oriented course work.  Instead, our challenge at the “Explorations” level is to work with university-level and departmental advisors to present students with a coherent Global Pathway though the diverse General Education offerings.  In other words, the goal is to educate students about existing strengths in Global Education at the Explorations level, and to assist them in designing their own GE program to maximize global learning.
• Capstone: At the nine-unit capstone level, which mandates interdisciplinary study, additional curriculum development will be forthcoming.  In particular, the College of Liberal Arts at CSULB, which provides the majority of GE learning experiences for our students, is currently engaged in an assessment of capstone level courses, and will encourage the development of new, upper-division, interdisciplinary courses that focus on vital global issues.  Another prospective change at this level is to require that at least one of the three courses taken by students as part of their capstone GE study is designated as a “Global Issues” course.

Advisement and Study Abroad opportunities:

Apart from curricular innovation and the strengthening of advising services, a major goal of the CSULB team will be to find ways to increase the percentage of our students who have the benefit of study abroad experiences during their college years.  Again, collaboration with community college partners, and communication with university and departmental advisors, will be central to this effort.

Close collaboration with existing advisement structures such as the GLOBE Pathway (Global Learning Options for Broader Education), the Learning Alliance (a cohort of freshman), the President’s Scholars program, SOAR (transfer and freshman student orientation), among others, will result in consistent, accurate and timely advise to students regarding Global courses and Study Abroad opportunities and scholarships.

Curriculum development:

The success of his initiative will be somewhat predicated on the close collaboration of faculty from diverse disciplines. Team-designed and team-taught courses that address the larger issues such as world poverty, immigration and migration issues, health care, etc. will be an integral part of the project. We wish to include as many faculty as possible in the process of course designing and advising to make it a truly university-wide effort. Increasingly, introductory courses are taught by part-time instructors. We plan to use this initiative to involve more permanent faculty and to include lecturers in the discussion and shaping of the program. The active role of the administrators, the advisors and the Academic Senate chair will be crucial in facilitating and implementing change.