College of Arts and Sciences degree requirements
The below link is a draft of the College Requirements proposal, for implementation Fall 2024.
The process and timeline for voting and approval of these requirements is also described below.
New College requirements for our undergraduate degrees are necessitated by the introduction of a new general education framework at Kansas State, as required by the Kansas Board of Regents. We will be generally updating curricula both to adjust to the new framework and, more importantly, to continue to improve on our mission to educate students.
The College’s Values and Priorities (k-state.edu), as formulated this past spring, include the following commitments and priorities that are relevant for curriculum revision:
Core Commitments
- We prepare students for a lifetime of responsibility and success in diverse careers and in their communities.
- We serve as the center of the university for foundational research and teaching, serving the needs of students across colleges and collaborating across disciplines in teaching, research, and service.
- We contribute to the betterment of society and the advancement of knowledge through accessible quality instruction, innovative basic and applied research and creative activity, and active engagement with the community.
- We are people-centered, valuing our students, faculty and staff, and acting responsibly with attention to diversity, justice, and a broad sense of sustainability.
- We address the global challenges that face our world through interdisciplinarity in instruction, research and creative activity, and engagement.
And the second priority
- Modern, Continually Improved Programs: curricula that are cutting edge, dynamic, and responsive to demands of the field, that promote interdisciplinary learning and high-impact student experiences, and that prepare students for a lifetime of responsible citizenry and of flexibility and success in their professional lives.
Desiderata
On the basis of these and specific curriculum and student success needs, we established the following desiderata for new college requirements.
- Maintain standards--the kind of preparation we stand for requires academic rigor
- Ensure “good citizenry” and responsibility, consistent with our land grant mission
- Ensure breadth and transferable skills, with training for flexibility and adaptability in the future, and critical and creative thinking with a variety of methods
- Ensure and foster interdisciplinarity
- Ensure/encourage student success and graduation/retention
- Prepare students for reality of a global, multicultural world
- Ensure flexibility in curricula, to allow double majoring and reduce lost progress when majors change
- Increase transfer friendliness
- Ease cross-college majors/”dual degrees”
- Make college requirements clear for advising
- Convey college identity through meaningful requirements aligned with instructional mission of the college and its instructional priorities.
Note about process
- This is a draft for input by faculty and staff. A&S C&C will approve a version to go up for vote by the faculty. See proposed process here: College Requirements Process Proposal 20230831.docx
- Course Lists included here are preliminary. For each area, course lists will be refined by A&S Course & Curriculum Committee, based on approval from disciplinary groups (following the model of the current US Multicultural Overlay). Course lists effective for Fall 2024 will be finalized by November 15. Units may suggest courses for inclusion by submission to course & curriculum.
Overview of the changes
The proposal includes a number of differences from the current. An orientation, which may be taught within programs, is proposed to help ensure that our students have the tools necessary for succeeding in the university, and that they have some familiarity with the College. The structure of the BS and BA requirements has been adjusted to better allow programs to think differently about their in-program design of a BS and a BA, even whether they want to offer each. The areas of those requirements have been simplified to avoid confusion with general education requirements and to better signal the purpose of each—roughly, a set of minimum requirements for the bachelor’s area (“of Science” or “of Arts”) and a set of minimal additional requirements that ensure that A&S students advance at least a little more in all areas (e.g., that they have more than the one science and one math required in the K-State Core), with recognition that the K-State Core requirements are all at the 100 and 200 level and are lower in total credit hours than some of our surrounding states’ requirements.
Many distribution requirements are eliminated or simplified. And some credit hours in required outside distributions (e.g. across social sciences, natural sciences, humanities and fine arts) have been reduced to make room for an outside concentration for all students, with the idea that that provides a structured opportunity for students to gain breadth—learning in an area outside their major—together with at least a little depth in that area, and allowing students to make that choice. While many of our students do pursue second majors, minors, or outside certificates, not all do, and we want to make room for and encourage all students to do so.
Please continue to check back here for additional information and updates.
September 7 draft of requirements
This was posted for course and curriclum review after discussion at the Sept. 7, 2023, faculty meeting. It is based on the version that was sent for review Sept. 5 without revision except for cleaning up of comments and alternatives, and included just the proposal itself (without additional background such as the above). The College Requirements Working Group will review and provide a revised draft for: 1) A&S Course & Curriculum vote to move forward, and then 2) Faculty vote by Sept. 18.