UNO's revised general education curriculum, now called MavEd, for students starting fall 2025 or later.
Opportunities for Faculty to Engage with MavEdThe goal of UNO’s general education curriculum is to develop students with an ability to exercise critical thinking skills and integrate seemingly disparate areas of knowledge in contexts of uncertainty.
UNO aims to do this through a relevant, coherent, and integrated general education curriculum that emphasizes the development of intellectual and practical skills, exposure to distinctive disciplinary perspectives, cultivation of individual and social responsibility, and incorporation of research-backed high-impact practices that facilitate integrative thinking and learning across disciplines.
Fundamental Skills
1. Writing (6 credits). Students will develop and express ideas in writing in various genres and styles that demonstrate consideration of audience and purpose, content, sources and evidence, and syntax and mechanics.
2. Oral communication (3 credits). Students will prepare and deliver purposeful presentations designed to increase knowledge, to foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners' attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.
3. Quantitative literacy (3 credits). Students will use numerical data to solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts, justify conclusions supported by quantitative evidence, and communicate those arguments in a variety of formats (using words, tables, graphs, mathematical equations, etc., as appropriate).
4. Data literacy (3 credits). Students will learn to evaluate data sources, extract data from multiple sources, clean and transform these data for analysis, and perform basic analysis such as elementary statistics or visualization to uncover valuable insights through data and make data-informed decisions. Students will follow best practices to build robust data pipelines that can be used to answer questions across various fields including the sciences, business, and fields concerning societal issues[1][2].Breadth of Knowledge
5. Social science (3 credits). Students will explore human society and social relationships through systematic study and analysis by applying scientific methods and theories to understand various aspects of human behavior, institutions, cultures, and interactions within societal contexts.
6. Humanities (3 credits). Students will examine the cultural, historical, and philosophical aspects of human society through critical analysis and interpretation and focus on the exploration of human creativity, values, beliefs, and expressions across different civilizations and time periods.
7. Natural and physical science (4 credits). Students will investigate the physical and natural world through systematic observation, experimentation, and analysis, applying scientific methods and principles to demonstrate understanding of natural phenomena, processes, and laws governing the universe. Students must complete a lab as part of this requirement.
8. Arts (3 credits). Students will explore creative expression, aesthetics, and artistic practices across various disciplines with a focus on cultivating skills, knowledge, and appreciation for artistic forms, techniques, and traditions.
Individual and Social Responsibility
9. Cultural knowledge (3 credits). Students will demonstrate an understanding of varied cultural perspectives and traditions, and critically analyze how culture creates and transforms individual experiences and social relations. Courses should explore how various systems, laws, and practices—both historical and contemporary—can affect individuals and communities in meaningful ways.
10. Civic knowledge and engagement (3 credits). Students will demonstrate an understanding of issues related to citizenship, community involvement, and ethical responsibility, by critically analyzing distinct civic, governmental, and social systems and institutions