General Education and Assessment
Simpson Core Curriculum

Simpson Core Curriculum

The Simpson Core Curriculum allows students to explore knowledge and meaning gained through study of the liberal arts and sciences.

Student Goals

Simpson students will

explore knowledge and meaning gained through study of the liberal arts and sciences.
cultivate character and community consonant with the college’s Methodist heritage.
actively engage their communities through work and service.
develop an understanding of and engagement with diverse peoples in pursuit of local and global justice and peace.

Information for Faculty and Staff

Foundations

A two-semester sequence required for incoming first-year students. Courses will promote college readiness by teaching key skills for success while exploring themes central to Simpson’s identity and mission.

Foundations 1

The first course in a two-semester sequence required for first-year students. This course explores issues of well-being and civic engagement at the personal, local, and global levels. The course will serve as an introduction to writing and critical thinking skills.

F1 Course Characteristics

Courses with a Foundations 1 designation will

1. Analyze an element of or issue related to civic engagement and well-being using shared texts to effectively support their written analysis.

2. Employ the required academic writing skills included in the course characteristics for Foundations 1.

3. Provide students with a common intellectual experience about civic engagement and well-being, including the shared text and academic writings, resulting in a minimum of 12 pages total, all of which are revised based on constructive feedback.

4. Provide students with an introduction to writing resources and purposeful instruction in writing focusing on the following elements: thesis statement, paragraph structure, organization, use of evidence, and revision.

5. Provide students with opportunities for exploration of careers, majors/minors, courses, and living with authenticity, meaning, and purpose.

6. Facilitate transition to college through attention to physical wellbeing (e.g., eating, sleeping, exercising), mental/emotional wellbeing, and financial wellbeing including introduction to on-campus resources.

7. Facilitate transition to college through introduction to key campus resources (e.g., CARs and the library) and focused work on academic skills such as critical thinking, reading, time management, study skills, metacognition/reflection skills.

Foundations 2

The second course in a two-semester sequence required for incoming first year students and some transfer students. This course explores issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice on local and global levels. Through this study students will explore issues including bias, privilege, power, and responsibility that are foundational in creating an inclusive and just society. Students will continue refining critical thinking and writing skills. Offered every spring.

F2 Course Characteristics

Courses with a Foundations 2 designation will

1. Analyze how historical and systemic forces relate to an issue connected to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.

2. Provide students with a common intellectual experience, including the shared text and academic writings, resulting in a minimum of 15 pages total, at least 12 of which are revised based on constructive feedback.

3. Include an assignment in which students demonstrate a conceptual understanding of one or more societal-level concepts related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (e.g., oppression, privilege, and institutional discrimination).

4. Include an assignment in which students demonstrate a conceptual understanding of one or more individual-level concepts related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (e.g., stereotyping, prejudice, and individual discrimination).

5. Provide students with purposeful instruction in writing focusing on the skills developed in Foundations 1 and use of counterargument, audience, tone, synthesis of sources found through more in-depth library research.

6. Provide students with purposeful instruction in library research and the opportunity to work with a librarian.

7. Provide students with the opportunity to reflect on how they could use their talents, passions, and/or knowledge to contribute to and improve equity in their community.

8. Provide opportunities for vocational and major exploration.

Writing Reinforcement

These courses offer a second touch with writing instruction and feedback, focusing on research, synthesis of sources and evidence, and analysis. The requirement may be fulfilled by a course that also fulfills an Inquiry or Mission area, or by a major course. The courses are typically taught at the 100 or 200 level. All advisors should strongly encourage students to take a Writing Reinforcement course in spring of the first year or fall of sophomore year. Classes are typically capped at 18.

Writing Reinforcement Rubric

Writing Reinforcement Proposal

Shared Understanding

Significant class time should be devoted to writing instruction, including sessions on thesis statements, body paragraphs, introductions/conclusions, use of evidence, and academic integrity/citations. While the Writing Center Director would recommend 50% of class time, even devoting 40% of class time to writing practices would improve writing-related outcomes.
Major writing assignments should include scaffolding, which is the process of using smaller assignments to develop writing skills.
Collaboration with Dunn Library would include in-class instruction and/or library visits.
Collaboration with the Writing Center would include in-class instruction and/or Writing Center appointments (these visits can be incentivized through extra credit or required).
A faculty seminar in May and/or August would discuss including writing practices in course syllabi (preferably meeting before faculty development day so that a brief follow-up meeting would be possible). Individual appointments for syllabus development with the Writing Center Director would be available to all WR faculty.
Weekly faculty development meetings would discuss assessments, assignments, and the evaluation of writing. Modeled on the Foundations 2 faculty development meetings, these meetings would function as support and training for faculty teaching WR courses.
The Writing Center Director would provide fully developed lesson plans for writing tasks such as: annotated bibliographies, evidence-based body paragraphs, in-text citations, introductions/conclusions, thesis statements, and works cited/reference pages. Resources would include assignments, handouts, peer workshops, and PowerPoint presentations. These lesson plans would be developed prior to initiating Writing Reinforcement classes.
Writing Reinforcement faculty should perform assessments on individual essays and within the course. Sample papers will be saved and reviewed during weekly meetings. Building a repository of these assignments and syllabi would be an important resource for Simpson. Assessment results would allow further development of Writing Reinforcement and provide a better understanding of writing instruction outcomes.

Inquiry

The purpose of Inquiry courses is to provide a diverse liberal arts experience. These courses will be offered at the 100-200 level and typically have no prerequisites. Each requirement draws from sub-disciplines with recognized expertise in that area of study.

Arts & Creative Expression

These courses explore human expressive activities as a means of interpretation and communication, designed to reveal certain meanings and ideas or to elicit specific responses.

ACE Course Characteristics

An Arts & Creative Expression course will…

1. …provide an opportunity for students to experience artistic expression through “hands-on” activity.

2. …promote an understanding of the value of creative thinking and the creative process.  

3.…investigate and assess creative works based on aesthetics, established principles within a given discipline, originality, material application, etc.

4.…demonstrate the value and necessity of the arts and arts institutions in human society (e.g., musical concerts, theatre productions, literary publications)

Scientific Inquiry

These courses focus on empirical data as a means of exploring and answering questions about the natural world. They provide experiences

for students to engage in the methods of science, such as hypothesis formation and testing, systematic observation, and analysis of data.

SI Course Characteristics

Courses with a Scientific Inquiry designation will

1. focus on content that is based on empirical evidence about the natural world.

2. encourage students to use critical thinking and scientific problem solving in context throughout the course.

3. provide students with at least one inquiry-based experience in which they address a scientific question by stating a hypothesis; designing or replicating an empirical study; and using data to draw a conclusion about the hypothesis or research question.

Human Behavior & Society

These courses explore individual human behaviors, groups, or systems through methods grounded in social science

HBS Course Characteristics

Courses with a Human Behavior and Society designation will

1. focus on content that is based on empirical evidence about individual human behaviors, groups, or systems.

2. teach students to critically evaluate theories and empirical evidence.

Cultural & Textual Inquiry

These courses use interpretive methods and critical theories to examine the products and/or practices of human cultures.

CTI Course Characteristics

Courses with a Cultural & Textual Inquiry designation will

1. use at least one interpretive method to critically examine products and/or practices of human cultures.

2. provide multiple opportunities to critically examine products and/or practices of human cultures within their contexts.

3. have students reflect upon their own socio-economic, political, and historical positionality while studying the products and/or practices of human cultures.

Historical Inquiry

These courses explore the ideas and practices of past societies. These explorations frame the contemporary world’s understanding of how and why historical societies changed over time, as well as these societies’ perspectives of themselves and their worlds.

Hi Course Characteristics

Courses with the Historical Inquiry designation will

1. examine the influences of social, intel

lectual, political, and cultural movements of past human societies on the past and the present.

2. examine the implications of historical construction.

3. interpret, discuss, and critique primary sources and ideas of past human societies.

4. analyze different historical and scholarly interpretations in terms of their evidence and arguments.

Data Analysis

These courses apply quantitative and statistical concepts to solve real world problems.

DA Course Characteristics

Courses with a Data Analysis designation will

1. offer explicit instruction on data analysis skills, including, but not limited to, data wrangling, statistical analysis, and communication.

2. include several opportunities for students to engage in data analysis with real-world data sets connected to authentic problems.

3. provide feedback that is designed to help students evaluate and improve data analysis skills.

Experiential Learning

Experiential learning courses consist of approved high-impact practices such as internships, service learning, co-curricular or extra-curricular activities, study abroad, entrepreneurship, collaborative projects, or undergraduate research opportunities. Incoming, first-year students are required to complete TWO distinct experiential learning experiences. May be fulfilled by a course that also fulfills an Inquiry or Mission requirement or a course in the major. Foundations courses cannot carry an experiential learning designation.

Experiential Learning

Course Characteristics:

Courses with an Experiential Learning designation will

require a minimum of 35 hours of engaged experiential learning, including the time for reflection.
require students to reflect on how education, work, and/or service promote the college’s core values (Discovery, Access, Citizenship, Belonging, Justice, and/or Integrity).

Mission

Effectively forming a core for the curriculum, Mission courses embrace disciplinary or interdisciplinary frames to develop students’ engagement with key areas of the college’s values and mission statements. They serve a scaffolding function by reinforcing and developing ideas learned in Foundations courses. These courses are aimed at second- and third-year students and are typically taught at the 200-level or 300-level without prerequisites. They may be taught by any department.

Local Studies

These courses focus on subjects within the historical and present boundaries of the United States while recognizing the nation is a contested and contingent formation encompassing diverse populations. These courses advance students’ understanding of core characteristics from Foundations courses.

LS Course Characteristics

Courses with a Local Studies designation will

provide students with opportunities to explore and critically evaluate consequential issues in the United States from multiple perspectives.
investigate issues in the context of civic engagement and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
explore and evaluate issues in the context of the societies being studied.

Global Studies

These courses ask students to consider subjects in political and social contexts outside the boundaries of the United States. By acquainting students with the diversity of thoughts, beliefs, and values of non-US societies, these courses advance students’ understanding of core characteristics from Foundations courses.

GS Course Characteristics

Courses with a Global Studies designation will

1. provide students with opportunities to explore and critically evaluate consequential issues outside of the United States.

2. investigate global issues in the context of civic engagement and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

3. explore and evaluate such issues in the context of the societies being studied.

Ethical Decision-Making

These courses explore ethical decision-making and its relation to our responsibilities to ourselves and others. They generate an understanding of ethics and value systems and practices. Ethical Decision-Making courses revisit some of the key issues discussed in the Foundations courses.

EDM Course Characteristics

Courses with an Ethical Decision-Making designation will

1. introduce a disciplinary or general theoretical framework for ethical decision-making.

2. apply the framework to ethical issues to explore our moral responsibilities to ourselves and others.

3. address one or more of the key issues discussed in the Foundations courses: civic engagement; well-being; or diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.

Synthesis

The Synthesis course provides an opportunity for students to integrate and reflect on the knowledge they have gained from their Inquiry, Mission, and Experiential Learning coursework. This 0-credit course is aimed at students who have completed at least 96 credits.

Synthesis

Student Learning Objectives

Students will

articulate the ways practitioners in different academic fields gain knowledge and draw conclusions.
explain how civic engagement and DEI inform and influence the ways they apply the knowledge they have gained.
explain how at least one of the college’s core values (discovery, access, citizenship, belonging, justice, and integrity) informs their experience of a high-impact practice.