General Education and Interdisciplinary Programs
Andrew C. Koehl, Ph.D., Director
The Core Curriculum at the college, our interdisciplinary majors, the Academic Exploration Program (AEP), and the First-Year Seminar Program are managed by the General Education Council. The Council is comprised of faculty from each school and staff from programs crucial to student achievement. Dr. Andrew Koehl (Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 1999) is Director of the Council.
Interdisciplinary Majors
Our cutting-edge interdisciplinary majors enable students to construct creative, challenging, and timely degrees relevant to their personal interests and professional goals. The B.S. in Cross-Disciplinary Studies and the B.A. in Liberal Arts combine an 18-21 hour minor with two 15-hour areas of study. These degrees prepare students for the constantly changing dynamics of a marketplace marked by these constants - employers want graduates who can communicate, think critically, and creatively solve problems. These majors also provide a way for students and parents to save time and money, as students who have pursued another major even through their junior years can switch into one of these majors and still graduate on time with a meaningful and marketable degree.
The Academic Exploration Program
The Academic Exploration Program helps students systematically and thoroughly determine their academic and career plan. This includes not only choosing the perfect major, but also strategically using every college credit to pursue double majors, minors, areas of concentration, internships and course clusters that prepare them for life and career. Students may enter the program upon entry to Roberts and access program initiatives throughout their time at Roberts. The program includes:
- Exploratory First-Year Seminar course
- specialized advising
- course sampling
- specially designed career advisement and training, including alumni mentoring
- Dine-A-Mind professor lunch program
- classroom visitation program
- Coffee House events with alumni and formerly undeclared students
- Career fair lunches
- Academic Exploration Resource Page
The Core Curriculum
The humanities, the sciences, the social sciences, and the arts are seen together as the bearers of our common human cultural heritage. The General Education Core Curriculum, rooted in these disciplines, is designed to help students thrive academically, in their careers and in their lives. It emphasizes a broad understanding of disciplines that develop the mind and inform all of human experience, as well as the development of crucial specific skills such as critical thinking, written and oral communication, team-work, and creative problem-solving, traits that consistently top the list of what employers look for when they are hiring recent graduates.
The General Education Core Curriculum is designed so students will
- explore values, faith, and worldviews
- investigate connections and pursue integration among disparate learning experiences
- develop intellectual abilities and academic skills
- understand foundational disciplinary perspectives
- practice responsible living.
Through the core curriculum the student is exposed to the aesthetic, historic, philosophic, and scientific methodologies, and thereby develops skills in computation, rhetoric, logic, critical analysis, and behavioral, historical, and scientific investigation. See Core Curriculum Requirements for the specific courses that comprise this program.
To speak with a representative of the General Education Council, call 585.594.6113.