Overview of General Education
Southern Utah University is committed to providing a comprehensive undergraduate education beyond disciplinary specialization. The University’s General Education (GE) program is designed to equip students with the critical skills, broad-based knowledge, and adaptable competencies necessary for success in the 21st-century workforce and engaged citizenship. The GE core encompasses 12 credits of core requirements of Written Communications (6 credits), Quantitative Literacy (3 credits), and American Institutions (3 credits); 1 credit of institutional coursework in Information Literacy; and 15 credits of introductory coursework across five (5) Breadth Areas: Arts, Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences. Students are encouraged to complete the GE requirements within their first 60 credit hours at SUU.
General Education Mission
Southern Utah University’s GE curriculum is dedicated to empowering students through a comprehensive educational approach that cultivates deep professional expertise, advanced critical thinking skills, and a nuanced understanding of ethical and interdisciplinary perspectives. By challenging students to develop robust reasoning capabilities, engage with complex problems across diverse fields, and prepare for meaningful career paths, SUU commits to transforming learners into adaptable, thoughtful, and skilled professionals prepared to excel in an increasingly interconnected world.
General Education Program Learning Outcomes
The GE program is designed to ensure that students demonstrate specific understanding and application of: (1) Intellectual and Practical Skills: Expand inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, written and oral communication, information literacy, teamwork and problem solving, and practical skills such as visual, kinesthetic, design, and aural forms of artistic communication; (2) Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural Worlds: Engage with “big questions”-both contemporary and enduring-in the sciences, mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts; (3) Personal and Social Responsibility: Develop personal and social responsibilities, including ethical reasoning and actions, foundations and skills for lifelong learning, community and civic knowledge and engagement, involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges, and local and global intercultural knowledge and competence; and (4) Integrative Learning: Demonstrate synthesis of learning and advanced accomplishment across coherent general and specialized studies and the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems.
General Education Requirements by Degree
Associate of Arts/Science or Bachelor’s Degree
The General Education program requires 28 credit hours of coursework for a general associate’s or bachelor’s degree:
- Two courses in the Written Communication Core (6 credits)
- A minimum of one course in the Quantitative Literacy Core (3 credits)
- A minimum of one course American Institutions Core (3 credits)
- One course in Information Literacy (1 credit)
- A minimum of 3 credit hours in each of the five (5) Breadth Areas
Associate of Applied Science Degree
See Undergraduate Degrees for General Education and degree requirements.
General Education Components
General Education essential learning outcomes are addressed and assessed in GE classes offered at SUU. GE courses allow students to explore issues and topics inherent in the learning outcomes. GE courses are designed to meet all essential learning outcomes for the respective Core or Breadth Area.
Core Requirements & Learning Outcomes
The core requirements for General Education encompass 12 credit hours of coursework in Written Communication, Quantitative Literacy, and American Institutions. These courses are intended to give students the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively communicate, be able to demonstrate basic mathematical competency, and have an understanding of the history of the United States and its economic and political systems.
Written Communication Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the Written Communication requirement, students will be able to: (1) Locate, evaluate, and integrate credible and relevant sources to achieve various writing purposes; (2) Demonstrate critical and conceptual awareness of genre in reading and writing-including organization, content, presentation, formatting, and stylistic choices; (3) Analyze rhetorical situations and adapt to the audience, purpose, modalities, and the circumstances surrounding a range of reading and writing tasks; (4) Recognize and make intentional, critical, and contextually-informed language choices across a range of rhetorical contexts/situations; and (5) Develop flexible, iterative, and reflective processes for invention, drafting, workshopping, and revision.
Quantitative Literacy Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the Quantitative Literacy requirement, students will be able to: (1) Use correct terminology and proper notation to explain quantitative or mathematical relationships (equations, graphs, diagrams, tables, data) and to support an argument, assertion, or purpose using quantitative or mathematical evidence; (2) Convert quantitative or mathematical information into appropriate mathematical representations and/or models such as equations, graphs, diagrams, or tables, including making and evaluating important assumptions as needed; (3) Use algebraic skills and techniques to solve problems, including the ability to identify and correct errors in calculations and understanding the role and proper use of technology in assisting with calculations; (4) Draw appropriate conclusions through quantitative or mathematical analysis of data or models, including understanding and evaluating important assumptions in order to recognize the limits of the analysis; and (5) Solve concrete and abstract problems across multiple disciplines.
American Institutions Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the General Education American Institutions requirement, students will be able to: (1) Analyze, contextualize, and interpret primary and secondary source documents to understand the history, principles, form of government, and economic system of the United States; (2) Locate, evaluate, and use historically, politically, and economically relevant information and data to develop and enhance information literacy and research skills; (3) Communicate effectively about the history, principles, form of government, multicultural populations, and economic system of the United States; (4) Engage diverse viewpoints that contribute to a constructive dialogue about the history, principles, form of government, and economic system of the United States; and (5) Apply historical, political, and economic perspectives and methods as appropriate to address big questions or threshold concepts pertaining to the history, political system, and economic system of the United States.
Institutional Requirement & Learning Outcomes
Students must complete one (1) credit in Information Literacy to fulfill the institution’s General Education requirements. This ensures students develop essential research and analytical skills aligned with university-wide learning outcomes.
Integrated Learning Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the General Education Information Literacy requirement, students will be able to: (1) Analyze information critically to solve real-world problems, issues, and challenges; (2) Use the appropriate skills and technologies to identify, locate, evaluate, synthesize, attribute, and share information effectively and ethically; (3) Apply integrative thinking to make connections across disciplines and sources; and (4) Reflect on the learning process to deepen understanding and consider transferability across knowledge environments.
Breadth Area Requirements & Learning Outcomes
15 credits of introductory coursework are required across five (5) Breadth Areas: Arts, Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences.
Arts Learning Essential Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the General Education Arts requirement, students will be able to: (1) Explain the creative artistic process as an iterative and recursive practice culminating in an expression of human experience and emotion through a medium; (2) Apply artistic concepts and ideas drawn from traditions of artistic creation and theory to better engage with, analyze and understand a creative work; and (3) Examine connections between art and society and articulate how the arts are a historical and cultural phenomenon.
Humanities Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the General Education Humanities requirement, students will be able to: (1) Examine how humanities artifacts (such as oral narratives, literature, philosophy, media, and artworks) express the human condition; (2) Explain how humanities artifacts take on meaning within networks or systems (such as languages, cultures, values, and worldviews) that account for the complexities and uncertainties of the human condition; (3) Analyze humanities artifacts according to humanities methodologies, such as a close analysis, questioning, reasoning, interpretation, and critical thinking; (4) Compare and contrast diverse humanistic perspectives across cultures, communities, and/or time periods to explain how people make meaning of their lives; and (5) Using humanities perspectives, reflect on big questions related to aesthetics, values, meaning, and ethics and how those apply to their own lives.
Social and Behavioral Sciences Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the General Education Social and Behavioral Sciences requirement, students will be able to: (1) Examine institutions and human behavior through social and behavioral concepts, methods, or theories; (2) Identify diverse perspectives to explore and examine social and behavioral phenomena; and (3) Apply discipline-relevant and scientific theories and methods to make inferences about or applications to social and behavioral phenomena at personal, institutional, or cultural levels.
Life Sciences Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the General Education Life Sciences requirement, students will be able to: (1) Describe and apply approaches to scientific discovery and interpretation of experimental data; (2) Demonstrate understanding of matter, energy, and their influence on biological systems; (3) Describe and apply evolutionary concepts in terms of inheritance, adaptation, and diversity of life; (4) Explain the mechanisms of information storage, expression, and exchange in living organisms or eco-systems; and (5) Reflect on the relevance of life sciences in a broader context.
Physical Sciences Essential Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the General Education Physical Sciences requirement, students will be able to: (1) Explain science as a process and as a way of understanding the physical world; (2) Demonstrate understanding of matter, energy, and their influence on physical systems; (3) Evaluate the credibility of various sources of information about science-related issues; and (4) Describe how the Physical Sciences utilize their foundational principles to confront and solve pressing local and global challenges, shaping historical, ethical, or social landscapes in the process.
General Education Policies
AA/AS Transfer Policy within Utah System
An Associate of Arts or an Associate of Science degree earned at any institution within the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE), or at other non-Utah institutions with articulation agreements, will be considered as meeting the General Education requirement of any institution in the system. When the General Education requirements of an institution not offering the Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree have been met in earning a 60 to 63 credit-hour diploma, a Registrar’s certification that the transferring student has completed baccalaureate-level General Education requirements at the sending institution will be accepted by SUU in lieu of the AA/AS degree. In the latter case, the Registrar at the sending institution will forward to SUU an up-to-date description of the General Education requirements.
GE Certificate of Completion
Students who have completed the General Education requirements at Southern Utah University are awarded an Academic Certificate in General Education. To qualify for the certificate, students must:
- Complete all of the SUU General Education requirements with a grade of “D-” or above; and
- Earn an SUU GPA of 2.0 or higher and a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher.
Students at Southern Utah University have two options for completing the General Education (GE) Certificate:
- Declare the GE Certificate as an Official Program: Students may officially declare the GE Certificate as a program of study on their enrollment records. This is completed by meeting with a Student Success Advisor. This option allows students to (a) apply for graduation, (b) participate in the graduation ceremony, and (c) receive a diploma signifying completion of the GE Certificate.
- Automatic Posting of GE Certificate: Students who do not officially declare the GE Certificate as a program will have the certificate automatically posted to their academic transcript upon successful completion of all required coursework. This option allows students to continue their education at SUU without specifically declaring the GE Certificate as a program of study. This option will not give students a physical diploma signifying completion of the GE Certificate.
Optional Methods for Satisfying GE Requirements
The University provides alternate means of satisfying requirements in the General Education program. Students may complete General Education requirements through Concurrent Enrollment (CE) courses in high school, Advanced Placement (AP) courses in high school, or by taking a series of tests under the College Level Examination Program (CLEP). Students interested in alternate means of satisfying general education requirements should refer to the Concurrent Enrollment website, Prior Learning Assessment section of this Catalog, the Testing Center, or their Student Success Advisor.
Transfer of General Education Course Credits
Students transferring to SUU from another institution are required to forward an official transcript for each college or university attended. Credits earned in general education from a campus in the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) are transferable to SUU. Credits earned at a community college or at a university outside of the state of Utah will be evaluated before acceptance for transfer to SUU by the Registrar’s Office.
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