Learning Objectives
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Overview
Rooted in Jesuit, Catholic educational traditions, the primary aim of Seattle University’s Core Curriculum is formative and transformative liberal education. The key elements of this curriculum are foundational knowledge in several relevant disciplines, critical inquiry, reflection on learning and values, and preparation for life as effective and ethical global citizens. This curriculum invites students into engaged learning about themselves, their communities, and the world. Because of the University’s location in the heart of a vibrant city, SU offers students unique learning opportunities connected to Seattle, the Northwestern United States, and global settings.
The Core Curriculum’s learning objectives are derived from SU undergraduate learning objectives and are shaped by four broad goals, each of which has specific knowledge, skills, and values associated with it. Students completing the Core Curriculum will be able to use the stated knowledge, skills, and values in their everyday lives.
Through knowledge of Jesuit, Catholic intellectual traditions and understanding of diverse religious traditions, students will reflect on questions of meaning, spirituality, ethics, values, and justice.
Knowledge
- Understand academic traditions (theological, philosophical, etc.) on which Jesuit education is based.
- Understand Catholic theology.
- Understand Jesuit, Catholic perspectives within the context of world religions.
Skills
- Ability to articulate one’s own spiritual/religious perspective.
- Ability to appreciate and reflect on religious and spiritual perspectives other than one’s own.
Values
- Respect for religious diversity.
By studying humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, and fine arts, students will learn how different disciplines pursue knowledge. They will learn disciplinary ways of posing questions, gathering and analyzing evidence, developing cogent arguments, and engaging issues related to nature, culture, and society. Students will also learn to integrate knowledge and explore their intellectual passions.
Knowledge
- Understand content and approaches to inquiry of different disciplines drawn from the general categories of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, and fine arts.
Skills
- Critical thinking.
- Critical reading.
- Creative thinking and expression.
- Quantitative literacy.
- Information literacy.
- Ability to integrate content of various disciplines and synthesize disciplinary perspectives.
- Ability to apply disciplinary knowledge and methods to answer questions and solve problems.
- Ability to engage in evidence-based reasoning and inquiry.
Values
- Appreciation of how knowledge is discovered and constructed within and across disciplines.
- Respect for alternative forms of inquiry and for diversity of viewpoints within and across disciplines.
- Appreciation of complexity and ambiguity.
Students will be able to communicate effectively in a variety of genres and for different audiences and purposes through writing, speaking, and visual expression.
Knowledge
- Understand the relationships between situation, author or source, intention or goal, audience, message, reception or effect, and medium.
Skills
- Ability to write academic prose in correct English and appropriate format, with clarity and elegance
- Rhetorical flexibility, including:
- Ability to write in multiple genres with emphasis on persuasion, argumentation, and reflection.
- Ability to suit form of communication to content.
- Ability to communicate in different rhetorical contexts, including in online environments.
- Ability to participate effectively in class discussions and conduct and sustain dialogue.
- Ability to prepare and deliver effective oral presentations.
- Ability to listen accurately, attentively, and respectfully.
- Development of advocacy skills.
Values
- Appreciation of the importance of communication in everyday life.
Students will examine their roles in local, regional, national, and transnational cultures and communities. Students will be prepared to act, from an informed perspective, on local and global issues that surround and affect them.
Knowledge
Understanding of key dimensions and issues related to the global community, including, but not limited to, issues such as:
- Race, class, gender, sexuality, and national identity.
- Other cultures and their histories.
- Cultural diversity through deep experience with a culture other than one’s own.
- U.S. role in global politics, economics, and culture.
- Historical, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of global issues.
- Environmental sustainability
Skills
- Ability to communicate across cultures.
- Ethical behavior in everyday life.
- Ability to reflect on one’s role as a global citizen.
Values
- Appreciation for cultural diversity in the world and cross-cultural communication and engagement.
- Appreciation for the importance of justice, such as issues of social justice, environmental justice, and human right.