Senate Document SD
88-33
(Approved, 4/10/1989)
(Superseded by SD 05-8)
TO: Fort Wayne Senate
FROM: Educational Policy Committee
DATE: March 24, 1989
SUBJECT: Goals and Objectives for the IPFW Baccalaureate Degree
DISPOSITION: To the Presiding Officer for implementation
Resolved, That the Fort Wayne Senate approve the following
statement of the goals and objectives for the IPFW baccalaureate degree.
Goals and Objectives for the IPFW
Baccalaureate Degree
An IPFW baccalaureate degree should signify that the
recipient understands the basic concepts of knowledge, has studied one field in
sufficient depth to appreciate its methodologies and fundamental unresolved
questions, and has acquired a basis for life-long learning. The tripartite
program described below outlines the course work required to ensure that these
goals have been fulfilled.
Although the student should bear major responsibility for learning, each
instructor should be charged with modeling the behaviors expected of students,
and the university with providing the support needed for effective learning.
Although the description outlined below necessarily divides the baccalaureate
curriculum into three parts, in practice each part should promote achievement
of the goals in the other two.
I. Core of General Education - The general-education core should
serve to provide fundamental skills, knowledge, and awareness.
A. Foundation Skills:
The graduate will possess requisite skills:
- to write and speak critically
and precisely, with clarity and persuasiveness
- to read and listen actively
and with comprehension
- to understand mathematical
concepts and to reason quantitatively
- to employ methods of learning
that include:
- logical and creative
thinking
- strategies specific to
different fields of inquiry
- integration of
knowledge, within and among subject areas
- critical analysis and
interpretation of information
- use of information
technologies for qualitative and quantitative work
- to
use problem-solving strategies as an approach to all learning.
B. Knowledge and Awareness:
The graduate will possess knowledge and awareness sufficient:
- to establish values, both
moral and aesthetic, while respecting a diversity of informed views
- to understand the
fundamentals of the physical, biological, and social sciences, both
theoretical and applied
- to understand the development
and major ideas of Western civilization and those of other civilizations,
as embodied in their history, arts and literature, sciences, politics,
language, and philosophy
- to relate geographical
knowledge to human activities
- to
exercise the responsibilities of citizenship.
II. Major Area of Study - The academic major should
focus on a specific scholarly discipline, requiring intensive study sufficient
to enable the graduate:
- to possess and be able to
apply knowledge central to the major discipline
- to be able to use methods of
scholarship and research within the discipline
- where applicable, to fulfill
requirements established by professional and/or scholarly bodies for
bachelor-level entry to employment or graduate-study opportunities
- to be able to integrate
theory and practice within the specialty
- to be able to communicate
about the specialty-field content effectively, with both specialists and nonspecialists
- to be aware of the means for
remaining up to date in the specialist field, and engaging in life-long
learning.
III. Electives - Graduates will have complemented the
general-education core and major area with additional knowledge and skills
gained from a program of elective courses combining breadth of subject matter
with specific study in depth.
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