Full General Education is coming Fall 2023
As you may know, and after much labor by many people over the past several years, UVM is implementing a system of 40 credit hours of General Education, called the "Catamount Core,” beginning in Fall ’23 for incoming first-year students.
Global Citizenship is (partly) designed for community-engaged courses
The Global Citizenship General Education requirement is diverse and can be fulfilled by a wide array of courses, but it was specifically designed to include community-engaged courses. CELO participated in writing the learning outcomes that pertain to community-engaged courses, and the intent and hope was that community-engaged courses would be easy to designate as Global Citizenship courses.
CELO supports the designation of community-engaged courses for Global Citizenship, both because it will help offer more courses, and because community-engaged courses are the epitome of developing citizenship skills!
Designation: SL/CL and GC2
Therefore, faculty are encouraged to submit their designated SL and CL courses for the GC2: Developing Global Citizens designation. Being designated does not require that you make your course open to all students, or eliminate pre-requisites, or change the course. What it does do is give students in your unit more options for completing the required 40 credits of General Education. (This is because even if students take a course that counts for two Gen Ed requirements, say an SU / D1 course, they still have to take 40 credits total of courses that meet the Gen Ed requirements.)
Faculty should especially consider designating community-engaged courses for Global Citizenship if:
- the course is always offered as service/civic learning
- it is a course that's already intended to draw students into the department
- it is a required course in the major (gives a bonus to majors)
- it is a (required) service-learning capstone (even if it is in the final year, students can plan on getting those 3 additional credits in their capstone).
The process is the same as was developed for the existing requirements of SU, D1/2, QR and FWIL. Faculty apply using the Course Action Forms - General Education Supplements. On this webpage, Global Citizenship's form is found under "Common Ground Values."
To apply, you will need to provide a syllabus (with key readings + assignments listed) and either a narrative or a completed outcomes chart, describing how the students achieve the required learning outcomes. Only two learning outcomes are required for GC2 courses:
- The learning outcomes relevant to community-engaged courses are the first three listed for GC2, so faculty can choose 2 of the following:
- Students will be able to analyze community contexts and community assets and identify and evaluate options for civic and social engagement.
- Students will demonstrate the ability to engage within community contexts and structures to further civic and social action.
- Students will be able to connect and extend disciplinary knowledge to active community engagement.
These should align with nearly every designated community-engaged course here at UVM.
Maintaining the SL designation
The service learning (SL) designation is more flexible, and can be applied to a given course any semester, or not, depending on whether the faculty member wants to do a project or service component. If a course is designated under Global Citizenship, that designation lasts for 5 years, and a faculty member should commit to doing service-learning — or community-oriented activities that meet the learning outcomes — while the course is designated for Global Citizenship.
We in CELO are happy to work with you on redesigns to stay in line with the learning outcomes, whether these are planned or under last-minute conditions!