Archived General Education Materials

Critical Capacities and Skills (CCS)  requires a student to demonstrate the capacity to think critically, write, collaborate, communicate, solve problems, and to deploy skills related to information and quantitative literacy.

1. CCS1 Problem Solving
2. CCS2 Information Literacy
3. CCS3 Critical Reading
4. CCS4 Quantitative Literacy
5. CCS5 Oral/Written Communications
6. CCS6 Collaboration

Personal and Social Responsibility (PSR)  requires a student to develop an understanding and commitment to individual well-being and to civic life and community needs.

1. PSR1 Relationships and Value Systems
2. PSR2 Responding to Community Needs
3. PSR3 Individual Well-Being

Interconnecting Perspectives (IP)  requires a student to study, reflect, and apply the understanding of diverse global and domestic perspectives both in the classroom and in a global setting.

1. IP1 Knowledge
2. IP2 Experience

Requirements
Students fulfill  developmental content requirements  by taking courses approved for each of the specific CCS, PSR, and IP areas (11 total) listed above.  Students fulfill many of these requirements using courses traditionally taken in the first or second year, but because both lower and upper division courses are included, in practice, meeting all of these requirements can be spread across the entire undergraduate career and can include courses in a student's major. The learning outcomes of each of the 11 developmental areas are assessed using rubrics adapted from AAC&U’s LEAP rubrics. (See more about assessment here.)

Students must also take required core and foundational courses  in academic areas distributed across oral and written communication (9 cr.), mathematics (4 cr.), the arts and humanities (6 cr.), the physical and natural world (i.e., lab science) (8 cr.), history (3 cr.), the social sciences (6 cr.), and a first-year seminar (2-3 cr.).  These core and foundational courses satisfy learning outcomes within CCS, PSR, IP developmental content requirements.  As such, the broad umbrella of developmental content also covers MSU’s foundational courses and core requirements.  In addition to ensuring a well-rounded foundation in disciplinary content for every graduate, foundational content also facilitates transfer within the North Dakota University System (NDUS) by meeting the state’s  GERTA (General Education Requirement Transfer Agreement) requirements.

Foundational Content (FC) includes studies in the arts and humanities (FC1 6 cr.), the physical and natural world (FC2 8 cr.), history (FC3 3 cr.), and the social sciences (FC3 6 cr.).

1. FC1 Humanities - Students will demonstrate knowledge of human cultures and cultural products—the arts and letters—and of how to study, compare, and critique diverse cultural perspectives and aesthetics. Students will also have the opportunity to produce their own cultural artifacts.
2. FC2 Lab Science - Students will demonstrate knowledge of the physical and natural world and how to produce and apply that knowledge in a variety of settings.
3. FC3 History and Social Sciences - Students will demonstrate knowledge of common and diverse historical experiences and of how to apply historical synthesis to inform decisions and understanding of the contemporary world. Courses from the social sciences in particular should emphasize scientific analysis from the everyday world and should analyze data and problems as they relate to the contemporary world. Courses from the social sciences in particular should emphasis analysis from the everyday world and should analyze data and problems as they relate to the contemporary world.

Required Core Oral and Written Communication (ENGL 110, ENGL 120, COMM 110), Mathematics, and UNIV 110

Current General Education Requirements (starting fall 2014) [link to catalog]

Transfer To Minot State University
MSU considers students who transfer with complete general education requirements under one of our agreements as meeting our requirements for Developmental Content, Foundational Content, and Required Core.

MSU considers students who transfer with 24 or more credits towards graduation—excluding credits earned from dual credit before high school graduation and credits earned by examination—exempt from  UNIV 110 First Year Seminar. Students need to complete all missing required courses in Minot State University’s General Education model.

If students earned credit for a course at another institution and think MSU should count it as a general education course, request a course transfer.

Course Transfer Requests
for Pre-Fall 2023 Program Years

The following procedure helps students who want a course from another university to count towards Minot State’s Developmental Content GE:

1. The advisor asks the relevant department to equate the transfer course to an MSU course with the requested DevC If equated, the transfer request is complete. (Course substitution fails to award GE credit.) If not,
2. The advisor asks the relevant department to equate the transfer course to the requested DevC If equated, the transfer request is complete. If not,
3. The advisor asks our committee to apply a requested DevC designation to the transfer course.
   1. You (the advisor) and the student work together to complete the transfer credit form, which also requires the course’s syllabus and rationale from the student describing how the class meets the DevC
      1. A person can find the form by selecting the Transfer Credit
      2. Send the signed form and supporting documentation to the Transfer Specialist in the Registrar’s Office, who then passes the materials to our committee for consideration.
      3. The committee’s chair sends the decision back to the Transfer Specialist in the Registrar’s Office and notifies the advisor, bypassing Faculty Senate consideration.

The following procedure helps students who want a course from another university to count towards Minot State’s Required Core or Foundational Content:

1. The student completes the Unofficial Transcript Evaluation Request form, which also requires unofficial transcripts, and sends the signed form and transcripts to the Transfer Specialist in the Registrar’s Office
2. The Registrar’s Office will determine credits that apply to our General Education Requirements and issue a transcript summary to the student.

Planning a Transfer To or From Minot State University
North Dakota’s General Education Requirement Transfer Agreement ( GERTA) guide provides information to transfer general education courses within the North Dakota University System (NDUS) and other associated North Dakota higher education institutions. The NDUS developed the transfer agreement to assist students who transfer within the eleven NDUS campuses and tribal colleges in North Dakota. NDUS deems students who complete the lower division General Education Requirement (GER) at one campus as completing them at another. A student with incomplete GER before a transfer will find their GE coursework acceptable as GER at another, although some redistribution of courses may result.

In the GERTA guide, Minot State lists the following seven components for General Education Requirements, along with a note that our university also requires Developmental Content:

1. Communication (9 credits: 6 credits of English and 3 of Speech)
   Any course marked ND:ENGL may apply to the 6-credit English requirement. Any course marked ND:COMM may apply to the Speech requirement.
2. Humanities  (6 credits)
   Any course marked ND:HUM. 
3. History (3 credits)
   Any course marked ND:HIST.
4. Mathematics (3-4 credits)
   Any course marked ND:MATH that is College Algebra or higher.
5. Science (8 credits)
   Any course marked ND: LABSC. This is a laboratory science requirement. Courses marked ND:SCI do not apply.
6. Social Science (6 credits)
   Any course marked ND:SS.
7. FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE (1-2 credits)
   UNIV 110 is required for students transferring less than 24 credits excluding credit earned by examination and early entry or dual credit coursework.

Students transferring to Minot State University should contact the former campus’s Registrar’s Office to forward GER records to our campus’s Registrar’s Office. Credits taken elsewhere and coded as indicated above will help you complete Minot State GER.

Students transferring away should either complete Minot State University’s GER or take transferable courses from our GE inventory (e.g., ND:ENGL, ND:HUM, ND:LABSC).

Please direct questions about the Transfer Agreement to the Registrar’s Office.

North Dakota University System Articulation and Transfer Page
https://ndus.edu/lets-get-started/transfer-to-a-different-campus/

Assignment Update

If you need to update the assignment in an existing general education course, please do the following.

Please make sure the updated assignment 1) meets the description and learning outcomes for that developmental content sub-category; 2) can be assessed using the rubric for that developmental content sub-category, and 3) will be used in all sections of the same course.

The outcomes and rubrics are in the developmental content application materials located below. You do NOT need to complete the entire application process, only submit an updated assignment that still addresses the appropriate outcomes and can be assessed using the appropriate rubric. 

Once you have the assignment ready, submit it here. 

New Application to Include Course in Developmental Content

If your department/division would like to submit a course for inclusion in general education, please read and complete the appropriate materials from below. Sign and submit the cover sheet (also included on the last page of the application materials) along with your application materials to the chair of the General Education Committee.

Developmental Content Application Materials

Critical Capacities and Skills (CCS) requires a student to demonstrate the capacity to think critically, write, collaborate, communicate, solve problems, and to deploy skills related to information and quantitative literacy.

• CCS1 Problem Solving
• CCS2 Information Literacy
• CCS3 Critical Reading
• CCS4 Quantitative Literacy
• CCS5 Oral/Written Communications
• CCS6 Collaboration

Personal and Social Responsibility (PSR) requires a student to develop an understanding and commitment to individual well-being and to civic life and community needs.

• PSR1 Relationships and Value Systems
• PSR2 Responding to Community Needs
• PSR3 Individual Well-Being

Interconnecting Perspectives (IP) requires a student to study, reflect, and apply the understanding of diverse global and domestic perspectives both in the classroom and in a global setting.

• IP1 Knowledge
• IP2 Experience

Foundational Content (FC)

• FC1 Humanities
• FC2 The Physical and Natural World
• FC3 History and Social Science

General Education Cover Sheet [pdf]

The MSU Academic Assessment Committee created an assessment system designed to collect data to evaluate the extent to which students acquire the skills, capacities, experiences, and perspectives specified in each major CCS, PSR, and IP area.  To do this, departments of participating courses identified an assignment or piece of evidence in the course that can be evaluated using a rubric designed for a specific developmental sub-area and its learning outcomes.  For example, a literature course that satisfies CCS3 (Critical Reading) might identify a particular writing assignment as the appropriate point of evaluation.  The instructor applies the rubric, adapted from AAC&U’s LEAP rubrics, to each paper and submits the results to a master database.  Over time, the assessment committee will collect substantial amounts of data indicating student performance on the learning outcomes of each of the 11 areas, allowing regular cycles of analysis, campus discussion, and improvement.  This system is designed to let MSU faculty see broad trends in the effectiveness of our general education model and to adjust for improvement. Rubrics are provided in the course applications for general education, in the assessment surveys below, and in the rubric listing below.

Original assignments used to assess each GE course in each content area - See this SharePoint folder.

Assessment Rotation*
Developmental content areas are assessed on a rotating schedule so that all areas are assessed every three semesters. The current rotation is:

• Fall 2022 - CCS2, CCS5, PSR2, IP1, IP2
• Spring 2023 - CCS3, CCS6, PSR3, IP1, IP2
• Fall 2023 - CCS1, CCS4, PSR1, IP1, IP2
• Spring 2024 - CCS2, CCS5, PSR2, IP1, IP2
• Fall 2024 - CCS3, CCS6, PSR3, IP1, IP2
• Spring 2025 - CCS1, CCS4, PSR1, IP1, IP2

Approximately 1/3 of IP1 and IP2 courses will be assessed each semester.

The list of courses and the semester in which they must be assessed is included in this Excel file.

Assessment Surveys 
To input data for your class, select the appropriate developmental content area below.

• CCS1 Problem Solving
• CCS2 Information Literacy
• CCS3 Critical Reading
• CCS4 Quantitative Literacy
• CCS5 Oral/Written Communications
• CCS6 Collaboration
• PSR1 Relationships and Value Systems
• PSR2 Responding to Community Needs
• PSR3 Individual Well-being
• IP1 Knowledge
• IP2 Experience

Assessment Rubrics
The rubrics for the developmental content areas are linked below.

• CCS1 Problem Solving
• CCS2 Information Literacy
• CCS3 Critical Reading
• CCS4 Quantitative Literacy
• CCS5 Oral/Written Communications
• CCS6 Collaboration
• PSR1 Relationships and Value Systems
• PSR2 Responding to Community Needs
• PSR3 Individual Well-being
• IP1 Knowledge
• IP2 Experience

Gen Ed Assessment Presentations, Reports, and Other Info:

• General Education Dashboard
• General Education Presentation 2022 Spring Assessment Day
• General Education Yearly Program Assessment (YPA)
  
  • 2020-2021 Plan, Project, Report, Budget
    
  • 2021-2022 Assessment Plan
    
  • Submitted Spring 2021
• GE Assessment Tables for Fall 2017-Spring-2021
• Presentation to Campus on Spring 2020 Assessment Day
• Fall 2017-Fall 2019 General Education Assessment Report
• Fall 2017-Fall 2018 General Education Assessment Report
• Fall 2017 General Education Assessment Report

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* The Academic Assessment Committee approved the following motion on December 5, 2018 to improve communication regarding notification of assessment of general education courses each semester:

An email will be sent to faculty prior to the start of the term or within the first week of the term every semester to ask them to complete their general education assessment if necessary. This email will include a list of the courses that must be assessed that semester if offered. Faculty are responsible for determining if their course(s) are on the list and for completing and submitting the required assessment results. The list will be posted to the Minot State Assessment webpage every term at the same time (Singer/Donovan; motion approved).