Rationale -- Preamble
CLA Document
One after another, college faculties are discussing the qualities of an educated person and qualities students will most need in order to live and work effectively in the twenty-first century. They are reaching agreement, too, about the importance of a broad range of knowledge of history, culture, science, and society; skills such as critical thinking, effective communication, and mathematics; and personal sensitivities to such matters as cultural diversity and global interconnectedness. Furthermore, many are using these goals to design more purposeful general education curricula--courses required of all students regardless of their majors or intended careers.1
This proposal essentially provides an agenda and framework for common learning that allows the faculty to develop a more coherent curriculum for its students that attends to the Common Learning Objectives the faculty has embraced. It begins with a rationale which is followed by a specific set of recommendations and by separate sections explaining each recommendation. The rationale provides a brief history of progress toward this proposal, lists the principal factors that have influenced the General Education Council (GEC) in its deliberations, discusses the principles that the GEC has come to adopt as fundamental in this proposal, and concludes with a guide to reading the proposal's constituent parts that will facilitate an understanding of both its coherence and the kinds of outcomes that its adoption should produce.
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1. Jerry G. Gaff, New Life for the College Curriculum: Assessing Achievements and Furthering Progress in the Reform of General Education (Jossey-Bass, 1991), p. xi.
