Making Knowledge Matter
As a liberal arts major, we believe it's important that you know what knowledge and skills you'll offer the world after graduation. That's why we believe in publishing these learning outcomes and encourage our students to explore them. Consider how each outcome manifests in your chosen major and how this newfound knowledge will benefit your life and career.
The Essential Learning Outcomes
Beginning in school, and continuing at successively higher levels across their college studies, students should prepare for twenty first-century challenges by gaining:
KNOWLEDGE OF HUMAN CULTURES AND THE PHYSICAL AND NATURAL WORLD
- Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts
Focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary and enduring
Intellectual and Practical Skills
- Inquiry and analysis
- Critical and creative thinking
- Written and oral communication
- Quantitative literacy
- Information literacy
- Teamwork and problem solving
Practiced extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance
Personal and Social Responsibility
- Civic knowledge and engagement—local and global
- Intercultural knowledge and competence
- Ethical reasoning and action
- Foundations and skills for lifelong learning
Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges
Integrative Learning
- Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems
This listing was developed through a multiyear dialogue with hundreds of colleges and universities about needed goals for student learning; analysis of a long series of recommendations and reports from the business community; and analysis of the accreditation requirements for engineering, business, nursing, and teacher education. The findings are documented in previous publications of the Association of American Colleges and Universities: Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College (2002), Taking Responsibility for the Quality of the Baccalaureate Degree (2004), and College Learning for the New Global Century (2007). For further information, see www.aacu.org/leap