Liberal Arts Exploration Taxonomy

Requirement: Four courses, one in each of four areas of study
I. Rationale:
The specific integrative studies requirements already approved, the liberal arts foundation requirements, provide a general education in the particular areas that the Houghton College faculty consider essential to Christian liberal arts: laboratory science, mathematics, philosophy, Bible, theology, Western civilization, foreign language, literature, writing, communication, fine arts, and physical education. Satisfactory completion of these requirements provides students with a solid foundation for further study and service in all areas of Houghton's curriculum.
This set of requirements, like most that could be described, represents compromises about how much of a student's coursework can be dedicated to particular areas of study, given the other necessary parts of the curriculum. In order to expand the liberal arts education of our students, while allowing considerable flexibility for student choice, Houghton includes a liberal arts exploration requirement. Here, courses are to be selected from four different areas of the liberal arts curriculum: social science, humanities, natural science, and Bible.
Broadly construed, these areas represent the components Houghton has held to be essential for our students. The liberal arts exploration requirement is designed to develop students' skills in the liberal arts. These skills include, but are not limited to, reading, expressive communication, exploratory analysis, critical thinking, problem solving, and interdisciplinary integration. Consequently, courses that contribute to the liberal arts exploration requirement will be designed to increase student capability with all of those skills.
The liberal arts foundation requirements provide an education that develops a solid understanding of the bases of Western culture in particular. The exploration requirement should strengthen the cultural understanding of our students, through specific connections to aspects of either Western culture or global culture. The resulting breadth of cultural knowledge, coupled with skills in critical assessment of human culture, will enable students to engage their multicultural world.

II. Objectives: Through selected coursework, students will:
1. Enhance the breadth of their general education through additional study in liberal arts areas outside their major disciplines.

2. Develop their liberal arts skills, including reading, expressive communication, exploratory analysis, critical thinking, problem solving, and interdisciplinary integration.

3. Strengthen their cultural understanding through courses that connect the course content or purpose to the variations of human culture and experience, enhancing the student's knowledge of one or more of:
i. some aspect of Western culture
ii. American culture and sub-culture
iii. non-Western or global culture.
For example, a mathematics course could connect the effects of the development of algebra and calculus to the development of the modern West; a social science course, the effects of culture on what questions are thought to be important; a literature course the way in which creative works both reflect and affect human experience.

4. Enhance critical and balanced thinking through application of methods of inquiry in four different but overlapping domains of knowledge: social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and biblical studies. Therefore, courses meeting this requirement must:

A. Explain and employ at least one specific system for describing, explaining, and understanding problems relevant to one of those areas
B. Demonstrate critical analysis of the advantages and limitations of that approach.
C. Require students to engage in critical analysis of a relevant epistemology.
D. Enable students to apply critical analysis to the course content.

III. Teaching methods: Any of the entire range of college-level teaching methods may be employed in courses meeting the liberal arts exploration requirement.

IV. Sequencing: Courses meeting the liberal arts exploration requirement may be taken at any time in the student's Houghton career.

V. Course approval pathway: Any faculty member or department may propose a course or courses appropriate to the objectives listed in part II above. No prospectus is required. A syllabus and any supporting comments will be adequate in most cases. The integrative studies department will consult with the relevant department(s) and submit a recommendation to the Curriculum Review Committee and the Houghton faculty.