GE Course Development

A. Core Competencies

The Core Competencies include Oral Communication, Written Communication, and Critical Thinking. These shall be lower-division courses

Overall Objectives

Students taking courses in Area A shall practice and enhance their skills and abilities to:

• Organize one's thoughts and communicate them clearly and effectively, using language that demonstrates sensitivity to gender and cultural differences.
• Find, evaluate, select, synthesize, organize, cite and present information and arguments clearly and effectively for a variety of purposes and audiences.
• Recognize and evaluate the features, functions, and contexts of language that express and influence meaning.
• Compare and contrast with care and accuracy the relative merits of alternative or opposing arguments, interpretation, assumptions, and cultural values.
• Reflect in an open-minded manner on one's own thinking in relation to the ideas of others.

Self-Review Forms

Please use these self-review forms to evaluate whether your course follows GE course requirements, and modify your course to incorporate missing elements.

• A.1. Oral Communication
• A.2. Written Communication
• A.3. Critical Thinking

B. Scientific Inquiry and Quantitative Reasoning

Scientific Inquiry and Quantitative Reasoning includes Physical Science, Life Science, Laboratory Experience, Mathematics/Quantitative Reasoning, and Implications and Explorations in Mathematics and the Natural Sciences.

Courses in B.1 through B4 shall be lower-division courses. Courses in B.5 shall be upper-division courses.

Shared Learning Objectives

• B.1 Physical Science
• B.2. Life Science
• B.3. Laboratory Science 

Subareas B.1, B.2, and B.3 share a set of core learning objectives. Students taking courses in subareas B.1., B.2, and B.3 shall:

1. Understand the nature of scientific inquiry and the unique way that the natural sciences and mathematics describe the universe.
2. Evaluate the validity and limitations of theories and scientific claims in interpreting experimental results.
3. Understand the dynamic and evolving nature of the sciences.
4. Recognize the importance of scientific paradigms and methods in understanding scientific concepts.
5. Use quantitative techniques and scientific reasoning to investigate problems and phenomena in the natural universe.
6. Understand the potential limits of scientific endeavors and the value systems and ethics associated with human inquiry.
7. Understand different types of uncertainty and its impact on scientific methodology and reasoning.
8. Analyze and manipulate graphical representations of data.
9. Formulate and evaluate hypotheses using quantitative techniques.
10. Use statistical techniques to evaluate uncertainty in experimental data.

Self-Review Forms

Please use these self-review forms to evaluate whether your course follows GE course requirements, and modify your course to incorporate missing elements.

• B.1 Physical Science
• B.2 Life Science
• B.3 Laboratory Science
• B.4 Mathematics/Quantitative Reasoning
• B.5 Implications and Explorations in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics/Quantitative Reasoning

C. Arts and Humanities

Arts and Humanities include Introduction to the Arts (C.1), Introduction to Humanities (C.2.), and Explorations in the Arts and Humanities (C.3)

Courses in C.1 and C.2 shall be lower-division courses. Courses in C.3 shall be upper-division courses.

Overall Learning Objectives

After completing course requirements in Area C, students shall:

1. Cultivate their intellect, imagination, sensibility, and sensitivity through the study of the arts and humanities.
2. Understand and explicate major concepts, themes, and imagery found in the arts and humanities and recognize aesthetic qualities and processes that characterize works of the human intellect and imagination.
3. Understand our significant works in the arts and humanities respond to and address enduring problems of human existence.
4. Appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the arts and humanities, including disciplines both within and outside the arts and humanities.

Self-Review Forms

Please use these self-review forms to evaluate whether your course follows GE course requirements, and modify your course to incorporate missing elements.

• C.1 Introduction to the Arts
• C.2 Introduction to the Humanities
• C.3 Explorations in the Arts and Humanities

D. Introduction to the Social Sciences

Social Sciences include Introduction to the Social Sciences, American History, Institutions, and Values, and Explorations in Social Sciences.

Courses in D.1 and D.2 shall be lower-division courses. Courses in D.3 shall be upper-division courses.

Overall Learning Objectives

After completing courses from different disciplinary perspectives in Area D, students shall:

1. Understand the ways that social, political, and economic institutions and human behavior are interconnected.
2. Understand problems and issues from respective disciplinary perspectives and examine issues in their contemporary as well as historical settings and in a variety of cultural contexts.
3. Understand the principles, value systems, ethics, and methodologies employed in social science inquiry.
4. Understand the ways cultures construct social differences, such as those based on ethnicity, gender, race, class, and sexual orientation, and their effects on the individual and society.

Self-Review Forms

Please use these self-review forms to evaluate whether your course follows GE course requirements, and modify your course to incorporate missing elements.

• D.1 Introduction to Social Sciences
• D.2 American History, Institutions, and Values
• D.3 Explorations in Social Sciences

E. Lifelong Learning and Self-Development

Courses in Lifelong Learning and Self-Development provide the opportunity to equip learners for lifelong understanding and development of themselves as integrated physiological, social, and psychological beings.

Courses in E may be upper-division courses so long as adequate numbers of lower-division course options in E are available to students.

Overall Learning Objectives

Students completing courses in Area E shall:

1. Further their own critical self-understanding and acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to engage and reflect in learning and self-development practices.
2. Develop strategies to be integrated physiological, socio-cultural, and psychological beings to promote a holistic awareness of lifelong learning throughout their lives.
3. Actively apply and participate in developing a lifelong commitment to health for both personal well-being (such as physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social/interpersonal, and/or environmental aspects) and societal responsibility.
4. Develop themselves as responsible citizens, employees and employers, family members and members of the global society.

Self-Review Forms

Please use these self-review forms to evaluate whether your course follows GE course requirements, and modify your course to incorporate missing elements.

• E. Lifelong Learning and Self-Development

F. Ethnic Studies

An "Ethnic Studies course" is a course taught by faculty from the African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Chicana and Chicano Studies departments and identified in the catalog as taught through the African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Chicana and Chicano Studies departments as home departments, if cross-listed.

Only the Ethnic Studies Requirement Committee may interpret California State University core competencies for the Ethnic Studies Requirement into CSUF GE Area F learning objectives to be used to select courses to fulfill the requirement. Courses that satisfy the Ethnic Studies requirement shall meet learning objectives that address at least three of the five CSU core competencies.

Courses in F may be upper-division courses so long as adequate numbers of lower-division course options in F are available to students.

Overall Learning Objectives

Students completing courses in Area F shall:

1. 1. (For lower-division courses) Idenify, define, and interpret core concepts such as race, racism, racialization, ethnicity, equity, ethno-centrism, eurocentrism, white supremacy, self-determination, liberation, decolonization, sovereignty, anti-racism, migration, labor systems, settler colonialism, imperialism, citizenship, and immigration in any one or more of the following disciplines: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o Studies, and Native American Studies. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 
   2. (For upper-division courses) Analyze, evaluate, and apply core concepts such as race, racism, racialization, ethnicity, equity, ethno-centrism, eurocentrism, white supremacy, self-determination, liberation, decolonization, sovereignty, anti-racism, migration, labor systems, settler colonialism, imperialism, citizenship, and immigration in any one or more of the following disciplines: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o Studies, and Native American Studies. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 1.
2. Apply theory, creative expression, and/or knowledge to describe the histories, cultures, lived experiences, and struggles within and/or across African American, Asian American, Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o Studies, and/or Native American communities from one or more of the following: African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o Studies, and Native American Studies. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 2.
3. Describe and critcally analyze the intersection of race with forms of differnce affected by systems and hierarchies of oppression, for example: structural racism; capitalism, genocide; sexism, heterosexism; ablesim; political and cultural representation in African American, Asian American, Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o Studies, and/or Native American communities. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 3.
4. Demonstrate knowledge of and critically analyze creative activities and imagination such as poetry, performance, music, media, and popular culture in African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanx/a/os and Latinx/a/os, and/or Native Americans. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 3.
5. Explain and interpret how histories of struggle, justice, solidarity, cultural and creative practice, language, identity development, and/or liberation are relevant to current identities and social structures on communal, national, international, and/or transnational scales as experience, enacted, and studied by African American, Asian American, Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o, and/or Native American communities. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 4.
6. Describe, document, and critically reflect on engagement with community issues focused on anti-racist and anti-colonial issues, and practices and movements in African American, Asian American, Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o, and/or Native American communities to build. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 5.
7. Engage, produce, and critically analyze creative activities and imagination such as poetry, performance, music, media, and popular culture in African American, Asian American, Chicanx/a/o and Latinx/a/o, and/or Native American communities. Addresses CSU GE Area F core competency 5.

Self-Review Forms

Please use these self-review forms to evaluate whether your course follows GE course requirements, and modify your course to incorporate missing elements.

• F. Ethnic Studies

Z. Cultural Diversity

Courses that satisfy the Cultural Diversity requirement must include all of the following learning objectives and in addition be approved GE courses in any area or subarea except A.1, A.2, A.3, B.4, or F.

Overall Learning Objectives

Students completing courses in Overlay Z shall:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which culture, difference, and otherness are socially constructed and fundamental to social interaction in an inter-connected world.
2. Demonstrate reflection and appreciation of the complex relationships that various factors such as gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion, class, and exceptionality bring to a discussion of society and culture.
3. Demonstrate a critical understanding of how power, privilege, and oppression play out across a range of cultures, human experiences, intersecting social locations, and historical experiences, including but not limited to one's own experiences.
4. Recognize how one's own cultural histories and practices mediate one's own sense of self and relationships to others.
5. Describe and understand how to enact ethical and transformative frameworks and modes of exchange and communication that promote rights, social justice, equity, and inclusiveness.

Self-Review Forms

Please use these self-review forms to evaluate whether your course follows GE course requirements, and modify your course to incorporate missing elements.

• Z. Cultural Diversity