Explorations courses encourage students to engage in different disciplinary methods and perspectives of the humanities, arts, natural sciences, and social sciences.
Explorations courses address the university’s mission to educate the whole person. Courses in this category invite students to engage in a critical examination of self, society, and the world through a variety of disciplinary perspectives. These courses build on the understanding and skills developed in the Foundations courses by introducing students to a range of approaches to human knowledge necessary for becoming intellectually and spiritually engaged citizens of the wider world.
Students are encouraged to take these Explorations courses in Years 2 and 3, and after completing at least half of their Foundations courses:
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Creative Experience, which emphasizes both theory and practice, challenges students to both explore their own intuition and imagination and to reflect critically on the work they and others produce.
Creative Experience Learning Outcomes:
Students will...
- Be able to use imagination and informed intuition as part of the creative process.
- Demonstrate appropriate skills for the making of a creative work.
- Know and apply critical methodologies necessary to evaluate art and art making, including their own.
- Know the social, historical and cultural context as well as the role that artists play in shaping culture.
- Value the rigorous and often collaborative nature of creative work.
- Value the diversity of creative expression across and within cultures.
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Historical Analysis and Perspectives imparts an understanding of both the unfamiliar past and the processes by which the world of the present was created.
Historical Analysis and Perspectives Learning Outcomes:
Students will...
- Know the chronological sequence and geographical framework appropriate to the subject matter of the course.
- Be able to analyze primary sources of multiple varieties and distinguish them from scholarship (secondary sources).
- Understand that historical knowledge emerges from debates over the interpretation of evidence.
- Learn to construct arguments about the past based on evidence and utilizing critical language appropriate to the subject matter and discipline of history.
- Value the complex process by which the present emerged out of the past.
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Nature of Science, Technology, and Mathematics engages students to develop the scientific literacy necessary for them to become knowledgeable citizens of the modern world and understand the impact of science and technology on society
Nature of Science, Technology, and Mathematics Learning Outcomes:
Students will...
- Understand the methods of inquiry used in science, engineering, and/or mathematics, and important elements of the knowledge thereby obtained.
- Be able to apply scientific, engineering, and/or mathematical methods of inquiry and knowledge to the solution of significant problems.
- Recognize and appreciate scientific, engineering, and/or mathematical methods of inquiry and knowledge for addressing issues of social importance.
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Understanding Human Behavior focuses on the methods of inquiry used by social and behavioral scientists to understand human behavior.
Understanding Human Behavior Learning Outcomes:
Students will...
- Understand what defines a social science, including its methodologies, and how it differs from other fields such as humanities.
- Understand theories and methodologies developed from empirical observation.
- Be familiar with the results of selected research that systematically and empirically examines how individuals, groups, or institutions interact in different contexts.
- Value the need to support theories and hypotheses with empirical evidence in order to understand individual, group, or institutional behavior in society.
- Critically examine outcomes of social science research.