Shared Futures

Arcadia University

Arcadia University aims to prepare its students for a world of increasing interdependence and complexity. It is essential to understand the inseparable connection binding us to other economies, states and value systems. Accelerating change is an inescapable fact that offers exciting possibilities and challenges. Scientific discoveries and technological advances have altered our perception of the universe, while economic development and revolutions in communications have brought cultures into new interactions, creating a new, global society. Inevitably, our students will live and practice their professions within multiple contexts. Therefore, general education requirements play a crucial role in the overall education offered at Arcadia University. Students will be familiarized not only with one academic discipline, but with many different areas of knowledge in the contemporary world of learning. To prepare to compete successfully in this new, interconnected world, Arcadia University’s curriculum educates its students to become active, not passive learners and to:

• Develop critical and analytical reasoning skills.
• Communicate effectively.
• Learn to apply new technologies to the acquisition of knowledge.
• Become socially responsible citizens.
• Understand the many ways we receive, interpret, and filter information.
• Understand the diverse methodologies of the natural and social sciences, humanities and the arts.
• Develop skills of active learning through performance and creation.
• Understand the past in order to comprehend the present and prepare for the future.
• Understand and appreciate cultural differences at home and abroad.
• Understand and appreciate their own culture, its sources and legacies, its past and present.
• Understand and appreciate both the necessity of ethics and the variety of ethical systems.
• Be prepared for a lifetime of independent learning.

In sum, Arcadia University educates its students to see themselves within a global context and to be prepared to approach the world’s diversity and complexity within a spirit of respect, cooperation and justice.

General Education Required Courses
The University-wide general education requirement consists of eight to fifteen courses (32 to 58 credits) depending upon prior course work, placement examinations and degree program being followed. The specific requirements are as follows:

English: Two composition courses beyond EN100: Basic College Writing. Assignment or exemption is based upon a writing inventory administered by the University or by transfer credit evaluation. (If a transfer student earned a “B” or better in both EN101 and EN102 equivalent courses, the student is exempt from taking the writing inventory.)

Mathematics: One mathematics course beyond MA100: Introductory Mathematics with Problem-Solving. Assignment or exemption is based upon a mathematics placement inventory administered by the University or by a transfer credit evaluation.

Modern Language: Completion of the 102 level of a language; may be required to take up to two courses in a modern language. Assignment or exemption is based upon a placement inventory administered by the University or by transfer credit evaluation. International students and students with two semesters of a modern language accepted in transfer are exempt from the modern language requirement. Students who studied a language not offered at Arcadia University must consult with the chairperson of the Modern Language Department regarding exemption from this requirement. Students may transfer American Sign Language (ASL)  courses to fulfill the modern language requirement.

Science: Two courses in laboratory science from biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, or interdisciplinary science. The two science courses do not have to be from the same discipline.

International Experience  Through substantial travel and study outside the United States that is credit bearing or by completing a course that has a substantial component of international study, as determined by the chair of the department offering the course. (Students who were raised outside the United States may petition to waive this requirement.)

Two core courses:

1. ID 111 Global Justice   An interdisciplinary course designed to give students strategies for exploring and thinking critically about issues of justice on a global scale. It is meant to enable them to see the place of their culture, nation and beliefs in the context of major encounters between the West and the other parts of the world. Students will be introduced to divergent  ideological positions and  learn to conduct debates, which will shape their own ideas about the representations of conflict and understanding in the world. Students will practice skills in writing, debate and discussion and critical analysis of seminal readings in the field. Texts include readings from literature from different cultures, history, political science, philosophy, and films. Lecture and discussion section format.
   
2. ID 222 Pluralism in the United States  This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of life in the pluralistic society of the United States.  Using concepts grounded in the social sciences as an analytical framework, the course will develop skills for moving beyond ethnocentrism to an appreciation of diversity in society. This framework will be established through readings, lectures and exercises derived from a number of different disciplines: anthropology, African American studies, history, linguistics, performance studies, political science, psychology and sociology. The course focus is further elaborated and explored through literature, autobiography, essays, films, journals and theatre.

Distribution Requirements:
Area 1 Visual and Performing Arts — One course
Area 2 History/Humanities — Two courses
Area 3 Social Science — One course

The courses taken to satisfy the distribution areas must be outside the student’s major field. A student who studies abroad may either use a course in his/her major to fulfill a distribution requirement or be allowed to fulfill a general education requirement with courses taken abroad, subject to the approval of the academic adviser and Registrar. The course taken to satisfy the international experience requirement may also be used to satisfy a distribution area or a major/minor requirement. 

Our current general education program, in place since 1994, centers around the two core courses, Global Justice and Pluralism in the United States. Both courses are taught by teams of faculty members from a number of departments. Justice is intended to be taken by first year students and enrolls between 360 and 400 students each year while Pluralism is a second year course that enrolls between 240 and 280 students each year. The differences in enrollments between the two courses are attributable to two things: Student attrition between first and second year; and, more significantly, students taking advantage of the course substitution referred to in the last paragraph of the description of the program. Students often substitute a social science course taken abroad for Pluralism. For those who study in Australia, many take a course on aboriginal folklore to satisfy this requirement.

This course substitution is symptomatic of how we have defined global education through this general education program. For the most part, globalization has been defined as international and internationalization is primarily experiential. That is, internationalization is accomplished by doing something(s): taking a course, studying in another country, etc. It is not, again for the most part, a perspective, a way of being in and making sense of the world.
And, thus far, the global does not include the U.S. The two core courses are not linked in any way so that Justice deals with international issues while Pluralism focuses on domestic concerns. In addition, as mentioned above, Pluralism, the only piece of the requirements that specifically addresses issues in the U.S., is bypassed by some students who study abroad.