The Liberal Studies program is designed to meet the goals of the university by offering innovative courses that are aligned with the needs of students and society.

Completing the Liberal Studies curriculum enables all IUP students to meet the Expected Undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes (EUSLOs), which are intended to produce informed, empowered, and responsible graduates from our institution.

Liberal Studies and EUSLOs

The Expected Undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes (EUSLOs) have specific skills, attitudes, and behaviors that students should be able to demonstrate once they have been achieved. The list below details the ways in which the Liberal Studies curriculum helps you meet each EUSLO.

Informed Learners

Informed Learners understand nature and society through forms of inquiry fundamental to the sciences, the humanities, and the arts. Learners are informed by knowledge and ways of knowing that extend beyond core concepts enabling them to link theory and practice.

Informed Learners demonstrate knowledge of:

  • The ways of modeling the natural, social, and technical worlds

  • The aesthetic facets of human experience

  • The part and present from historical, philosophical, and social perspectives

  • The human imagination, expression, and traditions

    • The interrelationships within and across cultures and global communities

      • The interrelationships within and across disciplines

        Empowered Learners

        • Empowered Learners are critical thinkers who demonstrate intellectual agility and creativity and the ability to manage or create change. They are able to derive meaning from experience and observation. They communicate well in diverse settings and employ various strategies to solve problems. They are empowered through mastery of intellectual and practical skills.
        • Empowered Learners demonstrate:
        • Effective oral and written communication abilities
        • Ease with textual, visual, and electronically mediated literacies
        • Problem solving skills using a variety of methods and tools
        • Information literacy skills including the ability to access, evaluate, interpret, and use information from a variety of sources
        • The ability to transform information into knowledge and knowledge into judgment and action
          • Critical thinking skills including analysis, application, and evaluation
          • Reflective thinking and the ability to synthesize information and ideas

          Responsible Learners

          Responsible Learners are engaged citizens of a diverse democratic society who have a deep sense of social responsibility and ethical judgment. They are responsible for their personal actions and civic values.

          Responsible Learners demonstrate:

          • Intellectual honesty
            Concern for social justice
          • Awareness of the ethical and behavioral consequences of decisions and actions on themselves, on society, and on the physical world
          • Understanding of themselves and a respect for the identities, histories, and cultures of others