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Welcome to SIU University Core Curriculum

The University Core Curriculum shapes the structure of general education at SIU. Our Program Overview contains pages listing all UCC courses, course descriptions, and some recent syllabi. Other pages explain various ways to satisfy UCC requirements. Finally, we offer additional information for Instructors, Academic Advisors, and Transfer Students.

Liberal Education, Your Success, Our Nation's Future

What is LEAP? "Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) is a national advocacy, campus action, and research initiative that champions the importance of a twenty-first century liberal education - for individuals and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality."

The Essential Learning Outcomes

→  Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
→  Intellectual and Practical Skills
→  Personal and Social Responsibility
→  Integrative Learning

More information about LEAP.

UCC Goals

In 2005 the Association of American Colleges and Universities launched its LEAP campaign (Liberal Education and America’s Promise). Central to this campaign are a set of learning objectives that SIU has adopted as its Core Curriculum Goals. For more on the LEAP campaign visit, www.aacu.org/leap.

1. 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

2. 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

3. Personal and Social Responsibility, including:

  • Civic knowledge and engagement - local and global
  • Inter-cultural knowledge and competence
  • Ethical reasoning and action
  • Foundations and skills for lifelong learning

Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges

4. Integrative and Applied Learning, including:

  • Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies

Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems