Contact Intisar Hibschweiler, Core Director -- ihibschw@daemen.edu -- 839-8322
The Daemen College core curriculum is an innovative competency-based curriculum. In today’s rapidly changing world, the competencies developed in the core curriculum will have lasting value and will provide a strong basis for lifelong learning. The core curriculum requirements of Daemen College are as follows:
· Fulfillment of seven core competencies
· Fulfillment of 45 credits of approved core course work outside the major
· CMP 101 English Composition
· Learning Community I (IND 101 + linked course)
· Learning Community II (two linked thematic courses)
· Service Learning requirement (3 credit hours)
· Quantitative Literacy requirement (3 credit hours)
· Research and Presentation requirement (3 credit hours)
· Writing Intensive requirement (3 credit hours, with CMP 101
and Research and Presentation courses also being Writing
Intensive for a total of 9 Writing Intensive credit hours)
The above requirements may be met in either core or major course work, but the total number of Core (non-major) credits required is 45. In addition, at least nine credit hours of the 45 Core credits must be at the 300-400 level. To facilitate advisement, student planning, and credit evaluation towards graduation, Core requirements are published as part of the program plan for each major and are available in hard copy from the Office of the Registrar or on departmental web pages where program plans for particular majors are listed.
The Seven Competencies
The seven competencies described below comprise the heart of Daemen’s core curriculum. Every course approved for Core credit includes one of the competencies as a primary competency and two or more as secondary competencies. Course syllabi explicitly state the learning objectives that relate to the competencies and the assessment techniques that will be used to determine if the student demonstrates mastery of the competency. The seven competencies are:
I. Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving
Critical thinking employs intellectual skills such as observation, classification, analysis and synthesis in a reasonable and reflective manner to arrive at meaningful decisions. Creative problem solvers think analytically (cognitively and affectively) and integrate various forms of disparate information into a coherent evaluation process. They demonstrate the ability to reason both inductively and deductively, generate alternative choices, consider consequences associated with each choice, and arrive at a reasonable decision in both familiar and unfamiliar contexts.
II. Literacy in Information and Multimedia Technology
The capacity to effectively exploit technologies, including computers, software, the internet, and databases for research, communication, and presentation. Information technology skills support the attainment of practical, academic, professional, and personal goals, and help develop an acute perspective on the relevancy of these resources to social and personal issues and life-long learning. Proficiency requires an ability to evaluate information obtained electronically and to ascertain the effects of these technologies on the individual and society.
III. Communication Skills
Effective communication includes grammatical and technical competency as well as the ability to communicate across cultural boundaries with an awareness of the rhetorical effects of language in a variety of situational contexts (including non-verbal). An ongoing writing curriculum that begins in the core will strengthen abilities to organize ideas coherently and strategically, to choose words precisely for different levels of discourse, and to judge appropriate tone in a variety of discursive situations.
Daemen Students must complete 9 credits in approved writing intensive courses
IV. Affective Judgment
Affective judgment emanates from the relationship between sensory experience and emotional response. Unmediated sensory experience can move people to great emotional depths and can provoke powerful sensations of certainty, wholeness, ambiguity, and vulnerability, to name just a few, all in the absence of discourse or reasoned contemplation. This kind of awareness, which is commonly called "aesthetic experience", is traditionally nurtured in the arts but may also be triggered by a gesture, an object, an image, or an encounter with nature. Aesthetic or affective experience often provides the key to clarifying and synthesizing disparate events and perceptions, revealing the felt connectedness of our world. By acquiring affective judgment, one gains sufficient aesthetic sensibility to respond knowingly and probingly to the myriad appeals to affective consciousness that characterize contemporary culture and to participate more fully in the exploration of the human spirit.
V. Moral and Ethical Discernment
A non judgmental understanding of how moral and ethical standards are formed, how they influence most aspects of our lives, and how they often shape public discourse and policy. Moral and ethical discernment is linked to such concepts as integrity, objectivity, public interest and justice.
VI. Contextual Competency
The ability to understand past and present issues affecting individuals, local societies, and global communities. People who possess contextual competency are comfortable with a global perspective, intercultural communication, diversity, and the existence of multiple and integrated causes for issues, events, and human behavior.
VII. Civic Responsibility
An appreciation that the health of local, national, and global communities is dependent on the direct and active participation of all members in the well being of the community as a whole. Civic responsibility entails a life-long commitment to addressing problems these communities face.
Learning Community Requirement
Certain courses are thematically linked as learning communities of two courses, enabling students from different majors to view course material through the perspective of different disciplines and to develop friendships with students outside their own specific field of study.
Quantitative Literacy Requirement
Quantitative thinking and skills are of great value in everyday life. Quantitative literacy at varying levels is clearly needed in preparation for further study in many academic and professional field Increasing amounts of quantitative requirement are needed in an increasing number of careers. Many adults, and especially college graduates, are very likely to assume positions in their communities and in professional organizations where quantitative literacy (e.g., the ability to deal intelligently with statistics) will come into play and may even be essential for effectiveness. A quantitative literacy requirement can thus be expected to enhance the quality of the performance of citizens.
Service Learning Requirement
Service Learning focuses primarily on relating theory to practice through the incorporation of a service learning component into the academic course. Service Learning frames the reciprocity issue, that all partners in the experience are servers, served, teachers, and learners. Service Learning assumes that colleges are living communities and the location of learning and serving.
Research and Presentation
This requirement facilitates the integration of course work, knowledge, skills, and experiential learning, enabling the student to demonstrate a broad mastery of learning within the discipline. Courses meeting the College’s three credit hour Research and Presentation (R&P) requirement include a research paper as well as an oral presentation with peer critique in a public forum. All courses approved for R&P credit must also meet Writing Intensive standards.
Writing Intensive
The College emphasizes the critical importance of written communication skills by requiring a minimum of nine credit hours in courses designated as Writing Intensive (WI). Six of these hours are fulfilled in the required CMP 101 English Composition course (3 hours) and through the Research and Presentation requirement. An additional three credit hours is taken in a Writing Intensive
