GEOC for Faculty

GE Area A1 courses emphasize communication theory and provide several speaking and listening experiences in multiple modes, e.g., small-group discussion, interpersonal communication, and persuasive discourse presented extemporaneously.

Upon completion of the GE Area A1 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Speak effectively when making oral presentations in English;
2. Explain the principles of effective oral communication, including form, content, context, and style;
3. Advocate for a cause or idea, presenting facts and arguments in an organized and accurate manner; and
4. Critically evaluate oral presentations.

GE Area A2 courses emphasize the rhetorical principles that govern reading and writing. These principles are fundamental to logical thinking and clear expression. For reading, they presumeopen-mindedness combined with critical thinking and analytical skills. For writing, they presume an awareness of audience, context, and purpose.

Upon completion of the GE Area A2 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Explain and demonstrate the principles and rhetorical perspectives of effective writing in English, including its form, content, and style;
2. Advocate for a cause or idea, presenting facts and arguments in an organized and accurate manner; and
3. Practice the discovery, critical evaluation, and reporting of information.

GE Area A3 courses emphasize the development of clarity and rigor in reasoning and its presentation, and the ability to understand, represent, and evaluate the presentations of reasoning made by others.

Upon completion of the GE Area A3 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments;
2. Logically construct arguments to support and refute claims using evidence;
3. Reason inductively and deductively; and
4. Distinguish matters of fact from judgments, opinions, and/or fallacies

A3 courses will include assignments or other assessable activity in which students apply the following skills:

1. Written assignments (e.g., argumentative essays, analyses of arguments, reflective writing, drafts of papers) with critical feedback provided by the instructor to the students at important junctures throughout the semester.
2. Collaboration (e.g., structured peer review; dialogue analyzing different sides of an argument, based on evidence; group or class projects)
3. Information Literacy: use of search strategies to explore information sources (e.g. search terms, truncation, filters, choice of database and/or library resources) and evaluation of gathered sources for relevance and credibility (e.g. peer-reviewed, author expertise, context, timeliness)

Upon completion of the GE Area B1 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge of scientific theories, concepts, and data about the physical sciences;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of scientific practices, including the scientific method; and
3. Describe the potential limits of scientific endeavors, including the accepted standards and ethics associated with scientific inquiry.

Upon completion of the GE Are B2 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge of scientific theories, concepts, and data about the life sciences;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of scientific practices, including the scientific method; and
3. Describe the potential limits of scientific endeavors, including the accepted standards and ethics associated with scientific inquiry.

GE Area B3 courses emphasize active engagement, collaboration, hands-on experiences that facilitate understanding of science concepts and the development of sound science practices and habits of mind.

Upon completion of the GE Area B3 requirement, student will be able to:

1. Apply their knowledge of scientific theories, concepts, and data about the physical and life sciences through laboratory activities;
2. Apply their understanding of scientific practices, including the scientific method in a laboratory setting; and

Apply accepted standards related to safety and ethics associated with conducting and communicating scientific inquiry, while completing laboratory activities.

GE Area B4 courses provide practice in computational skills as well as engagement in more complex mathematical work.

Upon completion of the GE Area B4 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate a proficient and fluent ability to reason quantitatively;
2. Demonstrate a general understanding of how practitioners and scholars collect and analyze data, build mathematical models, and/or solve quantitative problems; and
3. Apply quantitative reasoning skills in a variety of real-world contexts, defined by personal, civic, and/or professional responsibilities.

GE Area C1 courses integrate the evaluative and descriptive aspects of the history, theory, aesthetics, and criticism of different works, forms, styles, and schools of art.

Upon completion of the GE Area C1 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate an appreciation of the arts using their intellect, imagination, sensibility, and sensitivity;
2. Respond to aesthetic experiences in the arts and develop an understanding of the integrity of both emotional and intellectual responses; and
3. in their intellectual and subjective considerations, Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship among the self, the creative arts, and culture.

GE Area C2 courses emphasize the ideas and theories behind the intellectual and cultural traditions of humans using historical, linguistic, literary, philosophical, and rhetorical approaches and methods.

Upon completion of the GE Area C2 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Show appreciation for the humanities using their intellect, imagination, sensibility, and sensitivity;
2. Develop their affective and cognitive faculties through studying great works reflecting the rich diversity of human imagination and/or inquiry; and
3. Engage in critical self-reflection relating themes in the humanities to the students’ own lives.

#1 Evaluate the impact of the arts on your life. 

#2 Examine the cultural and/or historical context(s) of the arts. 

#3 Describe the ways that diverse identities influence the creation and experience of art.

#1 Evaluate the impact of the humanities on your life 

#2 Examine the cultural and/or historical context(s) of the humanities

#3 Describe the ways that diverse identities influence experiences in the humanities

#4 Identify the role of the humanities in diverse settings

Upon completion of the GE Area D1-2 requirement, students will be able to:

1. Specify how social, political, economic, and environmental systems and/or behavior are interwoven;
2. Explain how humans individually and collectively relate to relevant sociocultural, political, economic, and/or environmental systems—how they produce, resist, and transform them;
3. Discuss and debate issues from the course’s disciplinary perspective in a variety of cultural, historical, contemporary, and/or potential future contexts; and
4. Explore principles, methodologies, value systems, and ethics employed in social scientific inquiry.

GE Area E courses will focus on the development of skills, abilities and dispositions. This requirement is designed to equip learners for lifelong understanding and development of themselves as integrated physiological, social, and psychological beings. Physical activity may be included, if it is an integral part of the study elements described herein.

Upon completion of the GE Area E requirement, students will be able to:

1. Develop intellectual, practical, and/or physical skills and abilities that will serve them throughout their lives;
2. Apply their learning to other pursuits within and outside of the classroom; and
3. Demonstrate the capacity to make informed and ethical decisions

Courses must meet 3 of the following 5 outcomes, and the 3 outcomes that are met in the course will be published in the course syllabus.

Upon completion of the Area F requirement, students will achieve at least 3 of the following outcomes:

1. Using a comparative or focused approach, explain and analyze core concepts such as racialization, racism, white supremacy, racial capitalism, critical race theory, intersectionality, women of color feminisms, queer of color theory, (counter)hegemony, eurocentrism, self-determination, food justice in communities of color, environmental justice, liberation, decolonization, genocide, sovereignty, indigeneity, imperialism, settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, or anti-racism as analyzed in Native American/American Indian/Indigenous Studies, Chicana/o/x or Latina/o/x Studies, African American/Black/Africana/African Descended/Descendent of Enslaved African Studies, Asian/Pacific Islander/Middle Eastern/South Asian (APIMESA) American Studies.
2. Apply theory and knowledge such as Critical Race Studies and Women of Color feminisms produced by American Indians/Native Americans/Indigenous people, African Americans/Black people/African diasporic/African Descended/Descendant of Enslaved Africans, Asian/Pacific Islanders/Middle Eastern/South Asian (APIMESA) Americans and/or Latinas/os/xs or Chicanos/as/xs to describe the critical events, histories, cultures, intellectual traditions, contributions, lived experiences, and social struggles of those groups with a particular emphasis on group affirmation, agency, and praxis.
3. Critically analyze the Black feminist concept of intersectionality and the intersection of race, class, and gender with other axes of oppression including sexuality, sexual violence, religion/spirituality, national origin, immigration and citizenship status, ability, Indigenous sovereignty, language, and/or age as they apply to African American/Black/African diasporic/African Descended/Descendant of Enslaved African, Chicana/o/x or Latina/o/x, Asian/Pacific Islander/Middle Eastern/South Asian (APIMESA) American, and/or Native American/American Indian/Indigenous communities.
4. Critically review how struggle, resistance, rematriation, social justice activism, solidarity, abolition, and liberation, as experienced, enacted, and studied by American Indians/Native Americans/Indigenous people, African Americans/Black people/African diasporic/African Descended/Descendant of Enslaved Africans, Asian/Pacific Islanders/Middle Eastern/South Asian (APIMESA) Americans and/or Latinas/os/xs or Chicanos/as/xs are relevant to current and structural issues such as communal, national, international, and transnational politics as for example, in health disparities, educational inequities, immigration policies, reparations, settler-colonialism, language policies, media depictions of ethnic/racial groups, racial and sexual violence, prison industrial complex, community development, gentrification, and/or other ethnic politics.
5. Describe and actively engage with American Indian/Native American/Indigenous, African American/Black/African diasporic/African Descended/Descendant of Enslaved African, Asian/Pacific Islander/Middle Eastern/South Asian (APIMESA) American and/or Latina/o/x or Chicano/a/x communities to apply anti-racist, anti-colonial, humanizing, and women of color feminist frameworks to radically reimagine their communities as sites of justice and love

All courses approved for Area F must demonstrate use of Ethnic Studies pedagogies as evidenced by
1. centering decolonization, self-determination, and anti-racism as central components within Ethnic Studies teaching;
2. developing students’ critical consciousness (or their critical understanding of the world and their place in it);
3. including culturally responsive approaches that build upon students’ experiences and perspectives;
4. creating caring and empathetic academic environments;
5. building upon students’ cultural knowledge so that students find the agency to create culture and communities amongst themselves; 6. developing students’ agency so that they can use their education to respond to the needs in their communities beyond the classroom.

All courses must include study of resistance, social justice work, and agency of groups.

GE UD-B courses may focus on any area of the natural sciences or mathematics.

Upon completion of the GE UD-B requirement, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate advanced and/or focused science or quantitative content knowledge in a specific scientific field, using appropriate vocabulary and referencing appropriate concepts (such as models, uncertainties, hypotheses, theories, and technologies);
2. Apply advanced quantitative skills (such as statistics, algebraic solutions, interpretation of graphical data) to scientific problems and evaluate scientific claims;
3. Demonstrate understanding of the nature of science and scientific inquiry and the experimental and empirical methodologies used in science to investigate a scientific question or issue; and
4. Apply science content knowledge to contemporary scientific issues (e.g., global warming) and technologies (e.g., cloning), where appropriate.

UD-B courses should include assignments that, where possible, allow for the assessment of the following:
a) Information literacy. Students should be able to describe how they determined what information they needed to complete their analysis or research, how they evaluated the validity of their sources, and show proper integration/citation of their sources in their work, as well as apply their abilities to differentiate between science and pseudo- science.

b) Critical thinking in the context of a scientific or quantitative discipline. For example, students should be able to explain the methodologies by which conclusions are reached, and limitations of models used that may affect the reliability of those conclusions.

C) Collaboration and teamwork with peers.

Upon completion of the GE UD-C requirement, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply principles, methodologies, value systems, and thought processes employed in the arts and humanities;
2. Analyze cultural production as an expression of, or reflection upon, what it means to be human; and
3. Demonstrate how the perspectives of the arts and humanities are used by informed, engaged, and reflective citizens to benefit local and global communities.

UD-C courses will include assignments or other assessable activities in which students apply the following skills:
a) Advanced written (minimum of a combined 4,000 assigned words in, e.g., reflective writing, drafts of papers) with critical feedback provided by the instructor to the students. Students demonstrate mastery of all A2 requirements with evidence of sophistication in composition and critical thinking.
b) Advanced oral communication (e.g., formal presentations, debates) with critical feedback provided by the instructor to the students. Students demonstrate mastery of all A1 requirements, including the ability to give a presentation with a confident presence, critical thinking, and professionalism that is appropriate for the audience, is clear and logical, and demonstrates mastery of the subject at hand;
c) Collaboration or teamwork with peers.

Upon completion of the GE UD-D requirement, students will be able to:

1. Analyze how power and social identity affect social outcomes for different cultural and economic groups using methods of social science inquiry and vocabulary appropriate to those methods;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply accurately disciplinary concepts of the social or behavioral sciences; and
3. Demonstrate an understanding of and the ability to effectively plan or conduct research using an appropriate method of the social or behavioral sciences.

UD-D courses will include assignments or other assessable activities in which students apply the following skills:
a) Advanced written (minimum of a combined 4,000 assigned words in, e.g., analytical writing, research proposals/papers, drafts of papers) with critical feedback provided by the instructor to the students. Students demonstrate mastery of all A2 requirements with evidence of sophistication in composition, argumentation, and critical thinking.
b) Information literacy, in which students describe how they determined what information they needed to complete their analysis or research, how they evaluated the validity of their sources, and show proper integration/citation of their sources in their work; and
c) Collaboration or teamwork with peers.

Upon completion of the Diversity Overlay requirement, students will be able to:

1. Describe the histories and/or experiences of one or more U. S. cultural groups and the resilience and agency of group members;
2. Identify structures of oppression and the diverse efforts and strategies used by groups to combat the effects of oppressive structures;
3. Analyze the intersection of the categories of race and gender as they affect cultural group members’ lived realities and/or as they are embodied in personal and collective identities.
4. Recognize the way that multiple differences (including, for example, gender, class, sexuality, religion, disability, immigration status, gender expression, color/phenotype, racial mixture, linguistic expression, and/or age) within cultural groups complicate individual and group identities.

For the purposes of this document “cultural group(s)” refers to historically oppressed groups in the United States such as: African Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latinos/as, American Indians, Arab Americans, women, and GLBTQ (gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, and queer identified people).

Upon completion of the Social Justice Overlay requirement, students will be able to:

1. Use a disciplinary perspective to analyze issues of social justice and equity;
2. Describe the challenges to achieving social justice; and
3. Identify ways in which individuals and/or groups can contribute to social justice within local communities, nations, or the world.

Upon completion of the Sustainability Overlay requirement, students will be able to:

1. Identify the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability, either in general or in relation to a specific problem;
2. Analyze interactions between human activities and natural systems;
3. Describe key threats to environmental sustainability; and
4. Explain how individual and societal choices affect prospects for sustainability at the local, regional, and/or global levels.

Upon completion of a US-1 course, students will be able to:

1. Explain the significance or interpretation of major historical events in a period of at least a hundred years of American history;
2. Describe the contributions of major ethnic and social groups in a period of at least a hundred years of American history; and
3. Explain the role of at least three of the following in the development of American culture: politics, economics, social movements, and/ or geography.

Upon completion of a US-2 course, students will be able to:

1. Describe the development of the Constitution from the political philosophies of its framers to its later interpretation and amendments;
2. Explain how the Constitution influenced the development of American political institutions and government; and
3. Explain citizen rights and responsibilities under the Constitution.

Upon completion of a US-3 course, students will be able to:

1. Describe the role of California’s Constitution in state and local government;

2. Explain the place of California’s Constitution in the evolution of federal-state relations; and

3. Describe the political processes that enable cooperation and conflict resolution between state and/or local governments and the federal government.