At UA Little Rock, all students are required to take 35 hours of general education coursework from the Core Curriculum.
Assessment of the Core Curriculum is overseen by the Council on Core Curriculum and Policies (“Core Council”), an elected Council of the Faculty Senate. This Council was formed by Faculty Senate legislation in the fall of 2013 (FS_2013_2). The charge to this Council was to “…maintain criteria and approve courses for inclusion and retention in the UA Little Rock Core Curriculum” (https://ualr.edu/facultysenate/files/2014/01/FS_2013_2.-Council-on-Core-Curriclum-and-Policies.pdf).
The UA Little Rock Core Curriculum includes the following areas:
- Science
- Communication-Written
- Fine Arts
- Social Sciences
- U.S. History/Government
- History of Civilization
- Humanities
- Mathematics
- Communication-Speech
The following educational goals are addressed in multiple areas of the core:
Skills
1. Communication (oral, written, visual, second language; professional self-presentation).
2. Critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and solving problems individually and collaboratively.
3. Information technology (locating, retrieving, evaluating, synthesizing).
Knowledge
1. The concepts, methodologies, findings, and applications of mathematics and the social and natural sciences, engineering and technology.
2. The concepts, methodologies, and the global cultural heritage of the arts and humanities.
Values
1. Ethical behavior and personal responsibility.
2. Civic responsibility.
3. Global and cultural understanding.
See: https://ualr.edu/facultysenate/files/2013/12/Educational-Goals-by-Curricular-Area-03-01-2017.pdf
Assessment is a key to continuously monitoring both the effectiveness and continued health and development of these general education requirements, as well as student learning. Each curricular area is represented by a Curricular Area Assessment Committee (CAAC), which guides the implementation of assessment. All courses within a curricular area are assigned common educational goals and learning outcomes, which ensures a level of consistency within courses in a curricular area, facilitating the process of assessment.