The UALR Core Curriculum
UALR
is a comprehensive university with a mission of instilling
in students a lifelong desire to learn and to use knowledge
in ways that will contribute to society. In keeping with
this mission students are required to take a core curriculum.
The core curriculum establishes a foundation for the undergraduate
academic experience and ensures that students develop fundamental
skills as well as a lifelong commitment and ability to learn.
All core courses stress active learning, reading and writing,
and critical thinking. In addition, all courses focus on
one or more of nine basic competencies. Please refer to
the core curriculum chart in the most recent edition of
the UALR
Undergraduate Catalog for a list of courses.
Blue Ribbon Competencies
The purpose of the core curriculum is to establish a foundation
for the undergraduate academic experience and to ensure
that students develop fundamental skills and a lifelong
commitment and ability to learn. All courses stress active
learning, reading and writing, and critical thinking. In
addition, all courses are aimed at one or more of nine basic
"Blue Ribbon" competencies.
Aesthetic Experience: This competency includes knowledge
about different art forms and their history; an understanding
of how creative processes compare among art forms; and the
ability to describe and analyze artistic works.
Critical Thinking: Critical thinking requires the
ability to analyze data, synthesize information, make decisions,
and systematically and imaginatively solve problems. All
core courses stress critical thinking, providing practice
in the techniques of inquiry, logical reasoning,
and critical analysis.
Ethical and Moral Consciousness: Competency in this
area involves the ability to recognize ethical and moral
issues that may arise from scientific and technological
developments or that may be inferred from aesthetic and
humanistic works.
Historical Consciousness: Historical consciousness
requires the knowledge of the main stages of human cultural
development, along with the ability to relate one’s
historical heritage to that of other cultures, past and
present. This competency involves understanding historical
events, whether social, economic, or political, and then
examining the relationships among them-relationships such
as change, continuity, and causation.
International Awareness: The international awareness
competency involves the ability to examine one’s own
culture, society, and nationality from perspectives acquired
through understanding other cultures and nations, including
their languages, literature, art, history, and geography.
Mathematics: Competency in mathematics includes an
understanding of the concepts, the methodology, and the
application of probability and statistics; the ability to
use and interpret functions and graphs to express relationships;
an appreciation of the importance of numerical information;
and a recognition of both the role and the limitations of
mathematics in all areas.
Philosophy and Methods of Science: Competency in
the philosophy and methods of science involves understanding
the strengths and limitations of science, including how
scientists learn about the world through observation and
experiment, through modeling and interpretation, and through
the skeptical scrutiny of the work of other experts in the
field. This competency includes the following: an awareness
of relationships between science and society; the ability
to use scientific reasoning to evaluate conflicting statements
in order to arrive at informed opinions on contemporary
issues; an appreciation of how experiencing the universe
scientifically differs from experiencing it in other ways;
and knowledge of the questions that science neither asks
nor answers.
Social and Cultural Awareness: Social and cultural
awareness requires viewing human beings as organisms functioning
within a set of global, interconnected systems, including
nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, class, law, religion,
and communication-that influence and are influenced by changing
individuals. This competency includes knowledge about how
persons develop and grow; awareness of how social and cultural
systems influence values, thought, and behavior; and appreciation
for the interactions, conflicts, and communication among
systems.
Verbal Literacy: Verbal literacy includes four skills:
writing, reading, speaking, and listening and the ability
to use language to learn and participate in the discourse
and decision-making of academic, personal, professional,
and public life. Competency in written literacy involves
the ability to read and write clearly and thoughtfully;
to understand different writing and reading processes; and
to use these processes to advantage when writing and reading
about experiences and ideas. Competency in oral literacy
involves public speaking and interpersonal and small group
communication. All core courses address this competency.
Core
Curriculum Home Page
Course
Descriptions
Frequently
Asked Questions
Documents
Related to adding a Core Course
Background
Documents for Core Courses
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