Office of the Provost

To develop students' effective use of the English language and quantitative and other symbolic systems essential to their success in school and in the world. Students should be able to read and listen critically and to write and speak with thoughtfulness, clarity, coherence and persuasiveness.

• analyze and evaluate their own and others’ speaking and writing.
  
• conceive of writing as a recursive process that involves many strategies, including generating material, evaluating sources when used, drafting, revising and editing.
  
• make formal written and oral presentations employing correct diction, syntax, usage, grammar and mechanics.
  
• focus on a purpose (e.g., explaining, problem solving, argument) and vary approaches to writing and speaking based on that purpose.
  
• respond to the needs of different venues and audiences and choose words for appropriateness and effect.
  
• communicate effectively in groups by listening, reflecting, and responding appropriately and in context.

Results from the Written English Proficiency Test (WEPT) ¹² will be used to assess students’ competency in the effective written use of the English language.
Norm-referenced and proficiency scores for reading and writing from the Academic Profile Test (APT) will provide additional evidence of student competency.

An indicator of students' speaking ability will be the results of the every-semester competition with judges external to the program and even to the University,.conducted by the Communications Studies Dept.

Students perform before an audience of some 400, many of them students who use their attendance to satisfy an assignment (to evaluate an
"external" speech).

To develop students’ ability to distinguish among opinions, facts and inferences; to identify underlying or implicit assumptions; to make informed judgments; and to solve problems by applying evaluative standards.

To develop students’ abilities to locate, organize, store, retrieve, evaluate, synthesize and annotate information from print, electronic and other sources in preparation for solving problems and making informed decisions.
To develop students’ abilities to understand the moral and ethical values of a diverse society and to understand that many courses of action are guided by value judgments about the way things ought to be. Students should be able to make informed decisions through identifying personal values and the values of others and through understanding how such values develop. They should be able to analyze the ethical implications of choices made on the basis of these values.

• use multiple approaches to describe problems, identify alternative solutions and make reasoned choices among those solutions.
  
• analyze and synthesize information from a variety of sources, including the most contemporary technological information service, evaluate information for its currency, usefulness, truthfulness and accuracy. and apply the results to resolve complex situations and problems.
  
• defend conclusions using relevant evidence and reasoned argument.
  
• reflect on and evaluate their critical-thinking processes.
  
• organize, store and retrieve information efficiently and reorganize information for an intended purpose, such as research projects.
  
• compare and contrast historical and cultural ethical perspectives and belief systems.
  
• utilize cultural, behavioral and historical knowledge to clarify and articulate a personal value system.
  
• recognize the ramifications of one's value decisions on self and others.
  
• recognize conflicts within and between value systems and recognize and analyze ethical issues as they arise in a variety of contexts.
  
• consider multiple perspectives, recognize biases, deal with ambiguity, and take a reasonable position.

6 hours from at least two different fields, chosen from the following list:
Phil 210 or 222,
Hist 201, 202, 206 or 208,
Anth 103, 
Soc  103,
CS 100 or above
Math 160 or above

These courses, in addition to the remainder of the general education block of 42 hours, satisfy the three skill area goals of Higher Order Thinking, Managing Information and Valuing.

Because the WEPT requires students to evaluate information and discuss in writing facts versus opinion and to create an analytical essay supporting a position, the thesis and development subscores from the WEPT scoring will be evaluated.

Norm-referenced scores for critical thinking from the APT will provide additional data.
Results from the WEPT testing provide information about students’ ability to use and annotate their sources.
Since the topics used in the WEPT concern societal value issues and the prompts are designed to assess students’ ability to understand and analyze the concepts, overall performance on the WEPT will be used to assess this area.

To develop students’ understanding of themselves and the world around them through study of content and the processes used by historians and social and behavioral scientists to discover, describe, explain and predict human behavior and social systems. Students must understand the diversities and complexities of the cultural and social world, past and present, and come to an informed sense of self and others. (Students must fulfill the state statute requirements for the United States and Missouri constitutions.)

• explain social institutions, structures and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.
  
• develop and communicate hypothetical explanations for individual human behavior within the large-scale historical and social context.
  
• draw on history and the social sciences to evaluate contemporary problems.
• describe and analytically compare social, cultural and historical settings and processes other than one’s own.
  
• articulate the interconnectedness of people and places around the globe.
  
• describe and explain the constitutions of the United States and Missouri.
  (9 hrs from at least 2 different fields to include a constitution course)

Constitution course chosen from:
Hist 101 or
Hist 102 or
Hist 360 or

Pol Sci 210⁷ (3)
And,
6 additional cr hours from at least one
field other than above, chosen from Econ, History, Pol Sci, Psych, Soc, Geog, Criminal Justice (6)⁸

While students are not asked to recall specific knowledge, their performance as measured by the norm-referenced scores for social sciences on the APT provides evidence of students’ understanding of general concepts in these areas.

To develop students’ understanding of the ways in which humans have addressed their condition through imaginative work in the humanities and fine arts; to deepen their understanding of how that imaginative process is informed and limited by social, cultural, linguistic and historical circumstances; and to appreciate the world of the creative imagination as a form of knowledge.

• explain the historical, cultural and social contexts of the humanities and fine arts.
  
• identify the aesthetic standards used to make critical judgments in various artistic fields.
  
• articulate a response based upon aesthetic standards to observance of works in the humanities and fine arts.
• describe the scope and variety of works in the humanities and fine arts.

While students are not expected to recall specific knowledge, their performance as measured by the norm-referenced scores for humanities from the APT provide evidence of students’ understanding of general concepts in these areas.
Since the topics used in the WEPT concern societal value issues and the prompts are designed to assess students’ ability to understand and analyze the concepts, overall performance on the WEPT will be used to assess this area.

• recognize and use connections within mathematics and between mathematics and other disciplines.
  
• read, interpret, analyze and synthesize quantitative data (e.g., graphs, tables, statistics and survey data) and make reasoned estimates.
• formulate and use generalizations based upon pattern recognition.
  
• apply and use mathematical models (e.g., algebraic, geometric, statistical) to solve problems.

To develop students’ understanding of the principles and laboratory procedures of life and physical sciences and to cultivate their abilities to apply the empirical methods of scientific inquiry. Students should understand how scientific discovery changes theoretical views of the world, informs our imaginations and shapes human history. Students should also understand that science is shaped by historical and social contexts.

• explain how to use the scientific method and how to develop and test hypotheses in order to draw defensible conclusions.
  
• evaluate scientific evidence and argument.
  
• describe the basic principles of the physical universe.
  
• describe concepts of the nature, organization and evolution of living systems.
  
• explain how human choices affect the earth and living systems.