Goals of the Foundations Curriculum
Edgewood College’s curriculum aims to prepare students for lifelong learning and personal development, fulfilling careers, and growth in responsibility for the wider community.
The goal of the college’s General Education Foundations curriculum is to educate students in the liberal arts tradition by providing a strong foundation in skills and learning in the disciplines.
Foundations of Communication courses provide students the knowledge and ability to use logic and language effectively. Foundations of Human Learning courses provide students the foundational understanding necessary for the development of literacy and critical ability in the arts, sciences and humanities essential to career advancement, self-knowledge, a sense of personal responsibility and moral direction.
These goals, objectives and requirements were created and approved by the faculty in May of 1994 and revised in December of 2004.
Foundations of Communications
English Composition: to articulate and support clear, intelligent
ideas in written essays that demonstrate the student’s concern for subject,
audience, and purpose.
Mathematics: to acquire the ability to approach problems in a systematic way
and to have a basic understanding of mathematical language and ways of thinking.
Speech: to develop an authentic and articulate public voice, i.e., to
develop a student’s capacity to say what he/she means when speaking in public and to
say it cogently, coherently, clearly, intelligibly, and in a manner
appropriate to the occasion.
Logic and Critical Thinking: to acquire the ability to clarify ideas, form well-grounded
judgments, and unite judgments in an orderly manner, so as to reason to a valid conclusion.
Computer Competency: to provide an understanding of the operation and use
of computers and basic information literacy.
Foreign Language: to acquire in a cultural context an introductory
knowledge of the structure and vocabulary of a foreign language.
Foundations of Human Learning
F1 Literature: to develop skills of interpretation and critical evaluation of
literature and to develop one’s ability to experience literature with thoughtful enjoyment.
F2 History and Appreciation of the Fine Arts: to express aesthetic awareness and
critical judgments of creative works.
F3 Fine Arts Studio Experience: to enable the student to express personal
ideas, thoughts, and feelings in an original and creative manner, to explore a variety of
media and to foster perceptual, creative, and aesthetic awareness.
F4 Social Sciences: to gain the ability to search in a disciplined way
for answers to questions about human social behavior and societal changes and to examine
the link between the individual’s experiences and larger social processes and public issues.
F5 Natural Sciences: to see the natural sciences as a human activity that,
in part, deals with a variety of problems that societies face when interacting with the environment.
F6 History: to investigate the complexity of the human condition in time, the
dynamic and global nature of history and historians’ approaches to the past.
F7 Philosophy: to stimulate consideration of the ultimate human questions,
such as the nature of the universe, the cause of the universe, the purpose of existence,
and the criteria for genuine human living within the context of the search for goodness,
truth, beauty, and happiness.
F8 Religious Studies: to reflect and critically study faith, spirituality,
and religious traditions as an integral part of the human experience.
