Shared Futures

University of Wyoming

The University Studies Program (USP) at the University of Wyoming spans the six undergraduate colleges, requiring all students to take a general education curriculum in several areas.  Courses in each area are selected in consultation with the student’s advisor. It is anticipated that all students will have completed these courses by the end of their second year. The College of Arts and Sciences has additional requirements, including eight hours in a foreign language, a second writing course, and additional, upper-division course outside the student’s major. 

For a full description of the USP, please visit : http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/unst/USP_2003.htm.
The following draws and quotes extensively from the UW website.

Core Components                               Hours               Embedded Components**
Intellectual Community (I)                     1-3                  Information Literacy (L)
Writing 1 (WA)                                          3                     Writing 2 (WB)
Oral Communication (O)                       3                     Writing 3 (WC)
Quantitative Reasoning 1 (QA)*           3                     Global Awareness (G)
Quantitative Reasoning 2 (QB)            3                      U.S. Diversity (D)
Science (S, SB, SP, SE)                        4-8
Cultural Context (C, CH, CS, CA )        9
U.S. and Wyoming Constitutions (V)   3
Physical Activity and Health (P) 1

Total:                                                          30-36

 **Embeddable Components are those that may be taught as part of another course. This does not preclude those components being taught in courses dedicated solely to that topic.

I – Intellectual Community.  Courses that fulfill the Intellectual Community requirement of University Studies provide students with an introduction to the purpose and philosophy of higher education.  These academic, content-based courses, designed for first-year students, focus on the critical-thinking skills necessary to understand, analyze, and produce knowledge within the framework of the discipline or area of inquiry in which the course is offered.

L – Information Literacy.  Information Literacy entails developing the skills and abilities essential for adult learning.  It transcends disciplines, learning environments, and levels of education. Courses in Information Literacy teach students about general information as well as information that is specific to a given discipline. Such courses help students to effectively use library resources, evaluate information, and apply their knowledge to research assignments.

W – Writing.  University Studies Program writing courses assist students to achieve knowledge of writing conventions, to develop reading, writing, and critical thinking skills, and to gain competence in rhetorical knowledge.

• All WA classes are taught in the department of English and the Honors Program. 
• W courses must attend to knowledge and application of conventions; reading, writing, and critical thinking skills; and rhetorical knowledge (learning to adapt arguments, evidence, style, etc. for readers in a specific discipline).
• Writing assignments in W courses include a variety of interdisciplinary and discipline-related purposes, forms, and audiences.
• At each W level, at least one extensive writing assignment requires demonstration of appropriate research skills.

O – Oral Communication.  Oral communication is a set of abilities required to compose, critically analyze, present, and deliver information through oral interaction. Students normally satisfy this requirement with an Oral Communication course taught by the Department of Communication and Journalism.

Q – Quantitative Reasoning.  Quantitative reasoning is the organization, analysis, and application of measurement, including data representation, number sense, variables, spatial relationships and chance, to both conceptual and applied problems.

S – Science.  Biological, Earth, Physical, and Integrated.  USP science courses:

• Provide a substantial introduction to the fundamental principles of biological, physical, and/or earth sciences.
• Examine how basic scientific concepts in a discipline or disciplines evolve.
• Introduce students to the scientific approach as practiced in a discipline or disciplines.
• Address the scope and limitations of the scientific approach.
• Address how the discipline or disciplines influence and are influenced by contemporary society.
• Provide a term-long laboratory or equivalent substantial experimental work using the tools and processes of scientific investigation integrated with the lecture.

CH – Humanities.  Cultural Context-Humanities courses help students learn how to examine, analyze, and engage original and/or secondary humanities materials carefully and critically.

CS – Social Sciences.  Cultural Context-Social Sciences courses significantly address the histories, contemporary circumstance, and/or future prospects of human socio-cultural existence.

CA – Arts.  Cultural Context-Arts courses help students to understand the role of the fine arts in society and in the life of the individual.  In such courses, students will study the history, appreciation, and criticism of the arts and/or make art.

P - Physical Activity and Health.  These courses include lecture and physical activity components: the lecture component examines general fitness, the risks of physical inactivity, and the principles specific to attaining good health and fitness throughout life; the physical activity component includes at least one weekly session that allows students to engage in physical activities.

V – U.S. and Wyoming Constitution.  These courses provide students with an understanding of the history, cultural context, and principles of the institutions by which they are governed. Wyoming state statutes require this study. 

D – American Diversities.  Diversity focus on themes or issues in United States history, society, or culture, and on theoretical or analytical issues relevant to understanding race, culture, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and age in U. S. society.

Discussions Leading to the Global Awareness Requirement in the USP. 

The previous (prior to 2003) USP at the University of Wyoming had a single, inclusive requirement, Global Diversities. In discussions over more than a year it was concluded that all students will take a course in American Diversities and a course in Global Awareness.  The rationale for a Global Awareness requirement follows:

It is important, almost incumbent, that students intellectually confront the phenomenon of an increasingly interdependent world in which they live and work, now and beyond college.  This can be done by taking one course in international studies which could include:

• a course on international (economic, political,  cultural, etc.) systems that link nations,
• a course on transnational or multinational (scientific, technical, humanitarian, human rights, etc.) organizations,
• a course (in the arts, social sciences, sciences, or humanities) focusing on a specific country or region that emphasizes the international and transnational community of actors who influence and are influenced by the nation or region, or
• a course that focuses on global issues and problems -- of the environment, technology transfer, war and peace, human rights, and so forth.

In a world that is rapidly making the nation state obsolete, where no culture is discrete or understandable if studied in isolation of other cultures, and where our lives are increasingly dominated by international and transnational economic, political, military, cultural and scientific organizations, it is imperative that students confront some aspect of the interconnections that link us in a web of global ties.

G - Global Awareness.

Definition:  Global Awareness comprises various kinds of knowledge and perception that are necessary for human beings to identify, understand, and discuss global cultural diversity.  It is shaped by an examination of the relationship between historical and contemporary experience.  The purpose of the Global Awareness (G) requirement is to immerse students in a perspective that is different from their own, to challenge assumptions about the world and its operation, and to allow students to explore possible alternative viewpoints from other societies, cultural and religious traditions, or geopolitical regions.

Rationale:   Graduates of the University of Wyoming should acquire knowledge of the global organization and interdependence of human societies.  Such knowledge will foster students’ ability to identify and discuss contemporary global issues and to connect world events to personal experience.  An awareness of the conditions, beliefs, behaviors, and practices of a variety of cultures will help students to function productively in an increasingly globalized world. 

Outcomes:  Outcomes depend on the orientation of the course in which the Global Awareness component is embedded.  The course should point to one or more of the following:

1.  The ability to compare and contrast the unique characteristics of world cultures and the universality of human experience through examination of traditions, social organization, and ways of life.

2.  The ability to analyze and understand the interconnectedness of global and local concerns.

3.  The ability to recognize and interpret the aesthetic traditions and artistic representations that emanate from a culture located primarily outside the United States.

Criteria for Approval of University Studies Courses:

• Courses in this category should serve to broaden the student’s perspective and increase an understanding of the way diverse groups of people make sense of the world in which they live.
• The Global Awareness requirement may be met in courses devoted to the experience of a single culture, or in those devoted to a regional cluster of cultures.  What is important is that G courses help students understand global cultural diversity.
• While G courses may focus more strongly on either contemporary or historical experience, they should help students to understand the relationship between the two. 
• While not limited to studies of culture, courses in this category must focus on human activity and institutions.  Subject matter that is based on the physical world and natural phenomena must focus on human interaction with and response to these phenomena.
• While it isn’t required that a course seeking G certification already be a part of the University Studies Program, each course should show how a significant portion of the design and rationale relate to the philosophy of USP as articulated by this goal.
• While most courses submitted in the G category will also aim to fulfill one other USP goal, courses seeking only G certification will be considered
• Courses submitted in the G category cannot be certified under Cultural Diversity in the United States. 

Integrating Global Awareness Throughout the USP Curriculum.

Our intention is to support the development of many more courses with international content and courses that include a learning-abroad component. It is from existing courses that the USP draws its courses in fulfillment of the various requirements. 

Significantly, there are more Global Awareness courses than in any other USP category. Currently, 72 different G courses are offered by 31 departments in five of the six undergraduate colleges. Also, most of the G courses are embedded with seven other USP components: humanities, social and behavioral sciences, fine arts, biological sciences, earth sciences, and two writing components. As a consequence of this increasing commitment to the G component, it appears that UW has made important (albeit unplanned) steps in using global awareness as an organizing framework for an integrated general education program. 

We have two major goals:

1. Unify UW’s commitment to a global education.

• Provide coherence to the evolving USP curriculum’s attention to preparing students for citizenship in a global environment.
• Engage more faculty in innovative teaching and learning formats that increase students’ capacity to think critically about and working effectively in an increasingly interlocking global environment.
• Adopt assessment strategies that provide evidence of the level of global awareness and intercultural competency of students upon graduation from the University of Wyoming.  These assessment strategies would assist with USP’s assessment of general education, but will also be designed to help programs and departments assess the effectiveness of global awareness eduction throughout their curriculum (whether or not courses are designated as USP G category courses).

2. Increase opportunities for students and faculty to engage in global learning and teaching.

• Increase the global content of courses and the number of internationally and comparatively focused courses throughout the university.
• Strengthen the USP curriculum by allowing it to draw from a wide range of internationally-focused courses and courses with significant attention to comparative practices and processes.
• Enhance the global content of majors by developing coherence in comparative perspectives that link disciplinary knowledge to practices, innovations, problems, issues, and policies in other countries and global regions.