General Education Core Requirements
All students seeking an undergraduate degree at Montevallo must complete a core curriculum, which includes courses in oral and written communication, literature, humanities and fine arts, the natural sciences and mathematics, history and social and behavioral sciences, and personal development.
A list of current and prior general education courses is linked in the menu on the right.
Purpose and Goals of General Education
The core curriculum is the most complete embodiment of the University’s mission as Alabama’s publicly funded liberal arts college. In this curriculum, the University bears continually in mind the special meaning of freedom embodied in the term “liberal arts”: the arts that free or enable students to explore the perennial questions that confront every thoughtful human being questions about nature, human nature and society, and metaphysics. The University provides opportunities to explore these questions through liberal studies in the sciences, literature, the fine arts, history, behavioral and social sciences, and philosophy. The University is committed to liberal inquiry, not only in its core curriculum, but also in its professional and pre-professional programs. In all of these efforts, the University aims to graduate students who can bring to their vocations, their private lives, and their civic participation the habits of lifelong learning and energetic, informed reflection.
Liberal education is possible only if the student has acquired some degree of mastery and understanding of the instruments or skills through which the human mind can absorb information about the world, come to a deepened understanding of that information, and transmit that understanding to others. Accordingly, the University dedicates a substantial portion of the core curriculum to acquiring the skills and symbol systems that, because they make it possible for the mind to grasp what is not apparent to the senses, enable genuine learning.
The University of Montevallo has adopted the Essential Learning Outcomes presented below that have been developed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) through consultation with hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation.
AAC&U Essential Learning Outcomes
The Essential Learning Outcomes define the knowledge and skills gained from a liberal education, providing a framework to guide students’ cumulative progress.
Beginning in school, and continuing at successively higher levels across their college studies, students should prepare for twenty-first-century challenges by gaining:
- Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts
Focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary and enduring
- Intellectual and Practical Skills, including
Inquiry and analysis
Critical and creative thinking
Written and oral communication
Quantitative literacy
Information literacy
Teamwork and problem solving
Practiced extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance
- Personal and Social Responsibility, including
Civic knowledge and engagement-local and global
Intercultural knowledge and competence
Ethical reasoning and action
Foundations and skills for lifelong learning
Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges
- Integrative and Applied Learning, including
Synthesis and advanced accomplishments across general and specialized studies
Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problem
