Through a general education program, a college or university commits students and faculty to the pursuit of wholeness in learning - to seeing the relationship of our special interests to the larger academic and cultural contexts which we share. The search for an integrated understanding requires a general desire to learn, an energetic interest in the world, and a willingness to put ourselves in the place of those whose beliefs and outlooks are different from our own. A general education program, pursued by curious and empathetic faculty and students, provides a structure in which the accumulation of knowledge and the practice of disciplined, independent thinking can grow into comprehensive understanding and reasoned value.

Wholeness in learning results from participation in a learning community where both thinking independently and connecting with the heritage of human thought and knowledge are necessary and complementary. We come to understand our nature and our limits. We develop skill, openness, delicacy, and strength in negotiating with the world beyond ourselves. We test the conceptual frameworks that govern thought against the details of content and subject matter and the realities of experience. We accept the inevitable responsibility for making informed judgments.

An effective general education program requires the exercise of thoughtful and precise writing, critical reading, quantitative thinking, and processes of analysis and synthesis which underlie valid reasoning. Therefore, students must have a solid foundation in writing, reading, mathematics, and critical thinking.

Studies in the traditional academic disciplines are built upon foundation skills in thought and communication and lead students to grasp the conceptual frameworks that govern different fields of study. Such courses demonstrate that the study of specialized subject matter in any of the traditional knowledge areas - Arts and Humanities, Mathematics, Physical and Biological Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences - is critical to the central dialogues of general education.

Interdisciplinary studies focus on the conceptual frameworks through which a thinker, a culture, or an academic discipline may approach an issue. We discover both the ordering power and the potential limitations of the fundamental models of understanding that have shaped thinking throughout the history of civilization. We acknowledge the dependence of thought upon these models, judge them through comparison with alternative models from other thinkers and cultures, and yet are able to continue to participate with active, discerning commitment in the political, ethical and aesthetic life of the community.

General education is designed for all undergraduate students and may include course work at both the lower division and upper division levels. The purpose is to give every student pursuing an undergraduate degree the basic skills and the familiarity with various branches of knowledge which are associated with college and university education and are useful in advanced study within the university and in life beyond the university.

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