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Breakthrough General Education Program for Students Entering Westminster College in Fall 2019 and After

The Breakthrough curriculum, for students entering after fall 2019, focuses on education with a purpose. This program maintains the breadth of study that is the heart of the liberal arts education, but contextualizes it in an innovative way. Instead of viewing core courses as simply fulfilling academic categories such as Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences, students will internalize the role of the core courses in addressing the key issues that they will face for the rest of their professional lives. The Breakthrough curriculum strengthens the purpose of Liberal Arts by encouraging students to think of their courses as providing practical and useful ideas and methodologies for real world problems. Westminster students will graduate with the critical thinking, communication and technological skills necessary to succeed in a dynamic marketplace. Breakthrough retains the goal of transforming individual students, instilling in them a commitment to responsible and informed decision-making, and giving them the tools to make their own breakthrough.

The Purpose of Breakthrough

By locating the core courses in six themes—Aesthetics, Human Development, Global Perspectives, Values and Diversity, Institutions and Society, and Natural Science Inquiry—the curriculum stresses the connection between knowledge and methodology that is so essential for successful careers in today’s world. These categories expose students to fundamental questions about creativity, psychology and the brain, shared global responsibilities, ethical communities, the structures of modern life, and the potential of science.

General education should also provide some depth. Rather than simply require students to take random upper level courses, Breakthrough has the student select two upper level courses from an interdisciplinary cluster that is connected to one of the themes. The students pursue a set of questions rather than checking off requirements and, in effect, earn a mini-minor of three courses. The concentration is not in a single discipline like a major or minor might be, but is explicitly interdisciplinary, encouraging students to apply different methodologies to finding answers.

By exposing students to a multitude of approaches, concepts, and practices, courses in Breakthrough will help students better understand their world, while also developing critical thinking, communication, technological, and quantitative skills to prepare them for any advanced degree program or profession.

Breakthrough Foundational Acquire and sharpen basic intellectual skills, including critical thinking, communication, and numerical literacy in your first year of college. Themes Breakthrough has six different Theme categories that introduce you to a broad range of disciplines. Exploration Cluster Exploration Clusters provide you the opportunity to dive deeper into one of the six Theme content areas through interdisciplinary and interactive upper-level courses. Lifetime Leadership Skills Lifetime Leadership Skill courses enhance your written and oral communication skills, information and digital literacy, and research and analytical methodology.

Breakthrough consists of thirteen to fifteen classes designed to provide a liberal arts education that develops students’ intellectual capacities. Through foundational courses, Breakthrough will help students cultivate necessary skills for further academic study. Furthermore, Breakthrough is organized around Themes that provide students a breadth of knowledge through a variety of lower-level courses in different disciplines along with an upper-level Exploration Cluster that will allow students to immerse themselves deeper in the study of a particular subject.

Foundational Courses
Students will aim to take Foundational courses during their first year

ENG 103: Academic Writing

WSM 101: Westminster Seminar

FLG: Foreign Language

FLG: Second Foreign Language Proficiency Course

MAT 114: Elementary Statistics or

MAT 124: Calculus

 

Themes Corresponding Exploration Clusters
**Students will take one course in each of the six Themes
***Each Theme has a corresponding Exploration Cluster		 **Students will take two courses in one of the corresponding Exploration Clusters

Aesthetics: Students will study the importance and impact of human creativity either through the study of artistic expression or participating directly in the creative process.

 

Power of Creativity: The courses in this cluster will promote student appreciation of the many forms of art either through studying the existing canon of art or by having a hands-on experience that immerses students directly in the creative process.

 

Values and Diversity: This theme will address the role diverse values play with respect to how individuals and groups interact with one another in society and across social boundaries.

 

Creating Inclusiveness: Students will study diverse cultures within the United States in order to view their own perspectives more critically and to negotiate the variety of perspectives that shape our interdependent global society. 

 

Global Perspectives: Courses in this area will examine either the relationship of local society to the global, the nature of non-American cultures, and/or the background for understanding contemporary global issues.

 

Transnational Issues: Through this cluster, students will examine and address how global issues affect us and what we can do about them.

 

Human Development: This theme will address the interaction between human biology and society from a variety of contexts, such as functional, cognitive, emotional, philosophical, and social, and how these contexts relate to the human experience.

 

Human Experience: Courses in this cluster will explore both individual and social development in how we think, what we know, and how we grow as individuals. 

Institutions and Society: Students will explore the political, economic, and local systems that shape our lives including social institutions such as families, communities, governments, and economies. 

Structures in Society: This cluster will allow students to critically examine structures of society (political institutions, kinship, education, legal systems, and social and cultural norms) and how they shape our identity.

 

Natural Science Inquiry: This theme will introduce students to the key theories of a science and to its methods of inquiry.

STEM and Society: Courses explore STEM’s role in society as well as how science and empirical research work.

Breakthrough is dedicated to the development of Lifetime Leadership Skills. These practical skills are necessary in the rapidly evolving workplace facing our graduates and, in fact, are in high demand among employers.  The ability to communicate clearly and directly either orally or in written form is not only part of our general education, it is stressed in nearly every class.  Westminster makes sure that students graduate with appropriate information and digital literacy.  After four years, our students will also have to show that they understand the link between research and analysis that underpins an evidence-based society such as ours.

Lifetime Leadership Skills
Students will take five to six courses that address a particular Lifetime Leadership competency

Written and Oral Communication:  Communication includes the ability to write, speak, read, and listen effectively. Development of these skills is essential for preparing students to be confident communicators with the capacity to convey, engage, apply, and reflect on knowledge accessed within their chosen fields. 

·       Students will complete at least two Writing Intensive courses and one course dedicated to oral communication.

Digital and Information Literacy: Westminster prioritizes the development of skills in information technology, the ability to employ computer and other technologies in writing, the manipulation of data, and understanding the nature and limits of technology.

·       Students will complete one course dedicated to digital and/or information literacy.

Inquiry and Analysis:  From exploring issues, objects, and works through the collection of evidence to investigating complex topics or issues in order to gain more knowledge, learning methods of inquiry and analysis further develop students’ ability to think on a higher level.

·        Students will complete one course dedicated to inquiry and/or analysis. 

 

Summary of Breakthrough Requirements

Total Courses in Breakthrough:
Breakthrough Requirements Number of Courses
Foundational Courses 5-6
Themes 6
Explorations 2
Lifetime Skills 0-1
Total 13-15

*Lifetime skills distributed through existing requirements

  1. Earn 122 semester hours of course credit, with a minimum grade point average of 2.00 in the hours presented for graduation. No more than 2 hours of credit in developmental courses, 2 hours of credit in physical education activity courses, 12 hours of credit in internships, or 18 hours of credit in military science courses may be counted toward the minimum 122 credit hours required for graduation.
  2. (a) Earn credit in ENG 103, a three-hour course in composition.
    (b) Earn credit in two courses designated as Writing Intensive (WI) in the Schedule of Classes published each semester. The first course must be taken by the end of the sophomore year. At least one of the courses must be an upper-level course. Students transferring credit in composition must take three WI courses, with at least one upper-level course.
  3. Earn credit in one physical education activity course.
  4. Earn credit in LST 101: The Leader Within course.
  5. Complete at least 48 credit hours as a full-time Westminster student, including the two semesters immediately prior to graduation. If necessary to meet requirements for a degree, a student may take up to nine credit hours of approved courses at another institution after the last two semesters in residence. Any exception to this requirement must have the approval of the Vice President and Dean of Faculty.
  6. Be certified by a department as having met the department’s requirements for a major. No more than 40 credit hours in any one major subject may be counted toward the 122 credit hours required for graduation.
  7. Complete two 3-hour, upper-level courses (with different prefixes) that are outside the student’s major requirements. This applies to interdisciplinary majors as well as traditional majors. A student with more than one major can apply the upper-level cluster courses to one of their majors. The upper-level cluster courses can be applied to a student’s minor.
  8. All students must complete the College’s Breakthrough general education program, as described above.