Crimson Core

The common course offered under the Lifelong Learning, Career, and Self-Development competency, First Learning Year (FLY):

1. Develops intrapersonal skills (e.g., initiative, organization, prioritization, perseverance, dependability, flexibility, adaptability, change navigation) and interpersonal skills (e.g., active listening, respectful communication, perspective-taking) for academic success, career readiness, and life. 
2. Promotes aspects of personal wellness (i.e., emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, spiritual).
3. Incorporates the major mindsets of Life Design (i.e., action, collaboration, curiosity, process, reframing, storytelling).

Courses offered under the Lifelong Learning, Career, and Self-Development competency, Sophomore Area Readiness (SOAR): 

1. Encourage students to explore academic and social experiential learning opportunities (e.g., research, interning, maintaining a part-time job, informational interviewing, job shadowing, participating in an academic or career-based organization or club). 
2. Develop curricular, cocurricular, and (pre)professional plan(s) and goals within an academic program, as they pertain to the discipline and major-related field. 
   1. Revisit and update Odyssey Plan(s) from FLY. 
   2. Identify networks or experiences that help students progress professionally and personally.  
   3. Identify supplemental academic and cocurricular credentials, including concentrations, certificates, or minors that support students’ career goals. These must be internal or external to the university. 
   4. Understand and explore any post-graduation credentialing that must occur for career success, such as professional licensures. 
3. Incorporate NACE competency one, Career and Self Development, and at least one other NACE competency. 

In addition, SOAR courses include one or more of the following:

1. Introduction to the major concerns, themes, or paradigms of a disciplinary field. 
   • Examination of experiences and skills needed for a successful career. 
2. Review and evaluation of strengths, interests, and areas for development. 
3. Exploration of both hard skills and soft skills necessary for career success in a selected field. 
   • Identification and articulation of the differences between hard and soft skills.

Courses offered under the Written Communication competency:

1. Teach students to write effective, organized prose in discipline-appropriate genres and with various digital tools that communicate clearly and demonstrate awareness of audience, situation, purpose, and context.
2. Provide students with ample opportunities to develop their writing skills through various recursive process steps, including brainstorming, drafting, revision, editing, proofreading, and reflection.
3. Ask students to analyze their own writing and the writing of others for rhetorical effectiveness (i.e., attention to audience, situation, purpose, and context).
4. Teach how learned writing skills can be applied to other writing tasks/situations.
5. Provide students with multiple instances of feedback that are both instructive and evaluative from the instructor.
6. Encourage students to write authentically from their unique vantage points.

In addition, Written Communication courses include at least one or more of the following:

1. Production of an extended research project, including information literacy concepts such as locating, evaluating, synthesizing, and attributing sources.
2. Integration of the writing of others into their own writing; introduce appropriate conventions for giving credit to others’ ideas and words through attribution.
3. Emphasis on discipline-specific professional genres.
4. Instruction in other types of non-prose written communication (e.g., graphics, charts, presentations, etc.).
5. Assigned readings from various texts, including but not limited to models of genres students are writing, instructive readings about how to write, and peers’ writing.
6. Emphasis on media/digital tools and writing with/for technology. 

Courses offered under the Quantitative Reasoning and Data Analysis competency:

1. Interpret mathematical models such as formulas, graphs, tables, proofs, algorithms, and/or schematics. 
2. Represent quantitative information symbolically, visually, numerically, or verbally. 
3. Apply arithmetical, algebraic, geometric, logical, and/or statistical methods to solve discipline-based problems. 
4. Make judgments and draw appropriate conclusions based on the quantitative analysis of data, while recognizing the limits of this analysis. 
5. Evaluate solutions to quantitative problems to determine reasonableness, identify alternatives, and select optimal results.
6. Communicate quantitative evidence in support of the argument or purpose of the work (in terms of what evidence is used and how it is formatted, presented, and contextualized).

Courses offered under the Oral Communication competency: 

1. Identify organizational patterns and central messages that are clear and consistent with different communicative contexts. 
2. Explore delivery techniques that adapt to different communicative contexts. 
3. Encourage students to speak authentically from their unique vantage points. 

In addition, Oral Communication courses include one or more of the following: 

1. Promoting language choices that are thoughtful and enhance the presentation’s effectiveness. 
2. Supporting the central message with the use of multimodal artifacts.
3. Integrating a variety of critically examined sources to establish the presenter’s credibility/authority on the topic.

Courses offered under the Human and Creative Inquiry competency:

1. Introduce students to methods of analyzing and interpreting human events and/or works of the imagination. 
2. Engage with intellectual or artistic problems appropriate to the discipline, considering existing and novel ways to approach them. 
3. Communicate ideas effectively in speech, writing, and/or artistic expression, paying particular attention to the use of evidence in interpretive arguments and critical analysis appropriate to the discipline. 
4. Represent and critically respond to multiple points of view on cultural issues in different historical, social, and/or cultural contexts.  

In addition, Human and Creative Inquiry courses include at least one or more of the following: 

1. Exploration of the relationships between social, cultural, political, and/or aesthetic factors in their historical context.
2. Reflection on the roles of imagination and technical skill in the creation of creative works (e.g., dance, theatre, music, literature, studio arts).

Courses offered under the Scientific Reasoning competency: 

1. Recognize the ethical, dynamic, and evidence-based processes within science, understanding that scientific knowledge evolves with new evidence.  
2. Recognize that real-world solutions to scientific problems are addressed using a diverse community of scientists with different points of view that transform investigations, invigorate problem solving, and balance biases.   
3. Examine appropriate methods and techniques as applied to gather new scientific information.  
4. Evaluate scientific information critically to help distinguish between causation and correlation, differentiate scientific evidence from opinion, recognize credible sources, and identify pseudoscience.  

In addition, Scientific Reasoning laboratory courses include one or more of the following: 

1. Appreciation for the complex interrelationship of natural science with the life of the individual. 
2. Application of theories to practice in the working field of science.
3. Creation of a scientific conclusion that uses gathered scientific data and communication of these results in an appropriate manner.

Courses offered under the Values and Ethics competency: 

1. Incorporate reflection on one’s own values, as well as those of others and organizations, to develop competence in ethical and moral reasoning.  
2. Recognize ethical or moral debates in terms of their underlying assumptions and implications. 
3. Apply ethical reasoning and formulate arguments toward solving practical problems using discipline-appropriate frameworks of inquiry. 
4. Increase the knowledge and skills needed to conduct reasoned debate, including the willingness to listen, learn from, negotiate, and compromise with other individuals who may reflect a range of ethical positions and diverse values. 

In addition, Values and Ethics courses include at least one or more of the following: 

1. Explanation, interpretation, and comparison of significant systems and theories of human ethics and/or values, recognizing how beliefs may change over time and across cultures. 
2. Reflection on data sources and interpretation of data to inform the evaluation of the ethical and behavioral consequences of decisions of oneself, others, and organizations.
3. Understanding of the historical and philosophical bases of ethical decision-making and social responsibility in a disciplinary context.

Courses offered under the Civic Readiness competency:  

1. Explore the critical thinking skills employed by the discipline that lead to the construction of meaningful explanations of individual and societal behavior across local, regional, state, national, and/or international levels of analysis. 
2. Use discipline-appropriate frameworks of inquiry to understand how qualitative or quantitative analysis of socioeconomic, demographic, and other data relate to the discussion of historic or current public policy issues. 
3. Provide opportunities for students to practice making informed and thoughtful judgments about the development, implementation, and unintended consequences of public policy or governance initiatives. 
4. Incorporate relevant public policy current events topics (e.g., sustainability, social justice, inclusion, artificial intelligence guardrails, etc.).  
5. Increase the breadth of civic dispositions, including the willingness to listen, learn from, negotiate, and compromise with others as part of learning to both work with and learn from individuals who reflect a range of lived experiences. 

In addition, Civic Readiness courses include at least one or more of the following:

1. Reflection on their own roles and responsibilities related to governance, establishing regulatory parameters, and the determination of public policy goals within their communities and larger society. 
2. Reflection on data sources and how data collection and analysis methods can lead to biased interpretations that influence governance or public policy decision-making. 
3. Examination of decision-making frameworks to address situations in which the rights and goals of the individual may align or conflict with the rights and well-being of others in interpersonal, social, political, or economic contexts.
4. Participation in at least one civic engagement activity and connection of the experience back to the disciplinary field of study, using appropriate disciplinary theories and frameworks to analyze the experience.

Courses offered under the Global Learning competency:

1. Address global processes or systems (e.g., climate change and sustainability, migration, development, international trade, linguistic patterns, religious practices, literary or artistic traditions, colonialism) that connect different places in the world.  
2. Use discipline-appropriate frameworks of inquiry to construct meaningful explanations of current global issues.  
3. Explore the critical thinking, qualitative, and quantitative skills employed by the discipline to offer meaningful explanations of individual and institutional behavior, cultural norms, similarities, and differences across international levels of analysis. 
4. Encourage critical self-reflection on cultural origins, practices, and habits of thought to prepare students to apply these perspectives to contemporary global challenges.  

In addition, Global Learning courses include at least one or more of the following: 

1. Encouragement to demonstrate knowledge of the forces that have shaped the world, such as cultural, demographic, economic, historical, technological, political, religious, and social factors. 
2. Guidance to reflect on sources and interpretation of data to inform an understanding of contemporary global systems.
3. Breadth of global dispositions, including the willingness to listen, learn from, negotiate, and compromise with others as part of learning to both work with and learn from individuals who reflect a range of lived experiences.

Courses offered under the Leadership, Teamwork, and Project Development competency at the 100- and 200-levels: 

1. Explore the differences between groups and teams.  
2. Examine the process for developing and evaluating a team project and its team members. 
3. Compare various leadership theories and styles associated with project management. 
4. Identify different individual leadership skills used for project development and conflict resolution. 

In addition, Leadership, Teamwork, and Project Development courses at the 300- and 400-levels:

• Develop an effective team project which includes evaluation of the project and team based on criteria 1–4 above.