The institution requires in each undergraduate degree program the successful completion of a general education component at the collegiate level that is (1) a substantial component of each undergraduate degree, (2) ensures breadth of knowledge, and (3) is based on a coherent rationale.  For degree completion in associate programs, the component constitutes a minimum of 15 semester hours or the equivalent; for the baccalaureate programs, a minimum of 30 semester hours or the equivalent.  These credit hours are to be drawn from and include a least one course from each of the following areas: humanities/fine arts; social/behavioral sciences; and natural science/mathematics.  The courses do not narrowly focus on those skills, techniques, and procedures specific to a particular occupation or profession. If an institution uses a unit other than semester credit hours, it provides an explanation for the equivalency.  The institution also provides a justification if it allows for fewer than the required number of semester credit hours or its equivalent unit for a degree.

 

 X Compliance            __Partial Compliance             __Non-Compliance

 

Narrative

 

St. Petersburg College is in compliance with this requirement because its associate degree programs require at least 15 credits and its baccalaureate programs require at least 30 credits of general education coursework.  The general education component is based on a coherent rationale, focuses on broad skills and knowledge, and has at least one course in humanities/fine arts, social/behavioral sciences, and natural sciences/mathematics required for each degree program.

 

Rationale for General Education

 

The General Education Program at St. Petersburg College strives to introduce all students to the fundamental knowledge, skills, and values that are essential to further study in the major, to the pursuit of life-long learning, to the development of educated members of the community and the world, and to provide the foundation for becoming an informed, independent thinker who can comprehend, evaluate, and address the issues that human beings face in their personal lives, in their careers, and in community and public affairs.

 

The Effective Citizen model.  St. Petersburg College has adopted a general education model similar to one of the three models described in Robert Newton’s (2000) Tensions and Models in General Education Planning, the Effective Citizen model,  in which the needs of society and the student are emphasized in the general education curriculum.  Coherence is achieved through General Education goals that focus on the skills, knowledge, and values that can be applied in a broad range of situations, from community action to entrepreneurship.  “Real-world” skills important to any profession are intended to help students prepare for their careers:  writing, speaking, listening, teamwork, critical thinking and reading, computer skills, and mathematical problem-solving.  Broad cultural and scientific knowledge provide a context in which to frame future issues and problems.  To address values, twenty years ago SPC was among the first public institutions in the country to include the teaching of ethics as part of the required curriculum, offering a highly practical orientation where students are confronted with issues and dilemmas they are likely to encounter in their personal and professional lives, as well as providing the opportunity for students to study and apply virtues and basic American ideals such as justice, truthfulness, and freedom.  As Newton describes in the Effective Citizen model, “relevancy is emphasized” throughout the curriculum.  The end result of SPC’s General Education Program is an understanding of the value of life-long learning, as students grow to recognize the changing nature of their world over the course of the program.

 

St. Petersburg College and the Board of Trustees have approved the Faculty-recommended General Education Requirements for the A.A. degree, the A.S. degree, the A.A.S. degree, the B.A.S degree, B.S.N. degree and the B.S. degree.  These General Education Requirements comply with Section 1007.25, Florida Statutes as well as Florida Board of Education Administrative Rules and includes coursework in the areas of Communications, Humanities/Fine Arts, Mathematics-Logic, Natural Sciences, Social/Behavioral Sciences, and Computer Competency.  The Board of Trustees does have the authority to specify additional requirements, as long as the total general education credits do not exceed 36 hours and has expanded the general education requirements to include Critical Thinking, Working Effectively with Others, and Ethics based on Faculty and industry recommendations.

 

Critical Thinking and Working effectively with others.  Although not mandated by the state, Critical Thinking has been a goal at SPC for many years, following national trends in General Education.  In the comprehensive review of General Education, the committee added Working Effectively with Others to the General Education goals because of input provided by advisory committees from the local business community that this objective was critical to their businesses.

 

Ethics.  In 1982, Tom Gregory (a future chairman of SPC’s Board of Trustees, who earlier had been chairman of the Florida Ethics Commission) and President Kuttler were attending a national conference of college trustees.  They heard one of the speakers – Dr. Paul Ylvisaker, former Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education – outline the rationale for an Applied Ethics program.  They introduced the idea to the Board of Trustees, who approved the creation of the College’s Applied Ethics program. In January 1985, the first classes convened. Since that time, more than 100,000 SPC students have taken an ethics course.  Dr. Ylvisaker, visiting in 1987, was able to see firsthand, and affirm for Faculty and staff, the program he had inspired.  The basic course, Studies in Applied Ethics, was set at three hours and was required for all students seeking A.A. degrees. It was one of the first such courses in the country to be required for graduation. It since has become required of A.S. degree candidates as well.

 

Finding no satisfactory applied ethics text, the College authorized the writing of one. In July 1993, Ethics Applied -- written by 17 specially commissioned authors from around the country, including three of our own Faculty -- was published by McGraw Hill.  This was followed in 2000 by another text to meet the growing business ethics market -- Business Ethics Applied.  The original text, Ethics Applied, is now in its fifth edition, and the major revisions are the work of four SPC Faculty. Business Ethics Applied, Edition 3.0 was released in 2006 and is now in use.  Our newest text, Educational Ethics Applied, is in its second edition.  Published by Pearson Education, SPC’s ethics texts are marketed nationally by Pearson Education and Prentice Hall, and are used by a number of colleges and universities throughout the country.  The Applied Ethics program has expanded to include twelve courses, taught by ten full-time Faculty members and 15-20 adjunct instructors.

 

The College’s Applied Ethics Institute (AEI) was established in 1999.  An AEI Advisory Board was appointed in 2006.  The Institute’s mission is to provide Applied Ethics education and resources to SPC students, to local businesses and professional organizations, and to our community at large.  Projects include a partnership with Pinellas County Schools for character education initiatives, a partnership with the U.S. Justice Department and Florida Regional Community Policing for law enforcement Ethics curricula and training nationwide, and SPC Ethics Bowl teams competing regionally and nationally.  In September 2005, Instructor-in-Charge of the Applied Ethics program Keith Goree was presented the Association of Community College Trustees’ William H. Meardy National Faculty Member of the Year Award.  In September 2006, Keith Goree represented the College at the initial meeting of the National Consortium for Character-Based Leadership at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.  The primary mission of the Consortium is to promote ethics in the schools.

 

Coherence.  The coherence underlying all General Education courses results from their alignment with the General Education goals, monitored through a cyclic three-year review by the Curriculum and Instruction Committee.  SPC has few core courses, electing rather to grant students great freedom in selecting courses that are relevant or interesting to them.

• The one core course all students take at SPC is Composition I (with an Honors variant).  Composition I is universal because writing skills are basic to all other courses in addition to all future endeavors outside the college, but students are allowed to complete their Communication requirement with a wide variety of Literature courses (3 hours) and Speech courses (3 hours).

• The American Government General Education course is universal to all A. A, and Baccalaureate programs because they are designed to prepare students to be informed and engaged voters able to “participate in solving … political problems,” but students may select from a broad array of courses to complete their six-hour requirement in Social and Behavioral Sciences to meet the College goal of developing their ability to participate in “solving social, economic, and political problems in a multicultural and global society.”  Given the lower number of general education credits for A.S. programs, students in those programs are given the option of choosing any social or behavioral course to meet their three-credit requirement in the discipline because many A.S. programs are in health fields and students may benefit from taking psychology or sociology courses instead.

• Students must take at least one of three courses available in Western Humanities, but have a wide selection available in art music, philosophy, religion, or Eastern as well as Western humanities courses to complete their six-hour requirement.

• Student must take one biological and one physical science, but may take any course from a long list of introductory or advanced science courses because all Science courses designated as General Education courses provide students with the basic scientific understanding to evaluate current scientific issues.

• Students may take six hours in any college-level Math course, recognizing the wide variation in student backgrounds in Math upon entering college.

• Finally, students may take three hours in a variety of ethics courses tailored toward student academic and career goals.

 

Interdisciplinary coursework.  St. Petersburg College also has recognized the value of an interdisciplinary approach in General Education, offering through the Honors College.  St. Petersburg College has created courses similar to those recommended by the Harvard Committee on General Education to its administration in 2005:  “a number of year-long courses that would be synoptic and integrative in approach, and topically both wide-ranging and of considerable depth.  They should be orientations to large domains of material (texts, ideas, principles, discoveries) that cut across departmental boundaries and academic specialties to provide broad conceptual frameworks for further inquiry and learning.”  SPC’s interdisciplinary series started over 20 years ago in 1986 and covers 27 hours of General Education courses. 

• Honors Composition I, Honors Western Humanities, Western Civilization
• Honors Composition II, Honors Western Humanities II, Honors Introduction to Speech Communication
• Honors American Government, Honors Studies in Applied Ethics, Honors World Lit II

By allowing the freedom to select courses within a framework, SPC meets the needs of a broad demographic range of students, from Honors students to open-admissions students, from students fresh out of high school to students returning to class after a long break in the world of work while ensuring the goal of developing informed, independent thinkers is met.

Goals of the General Education Program at St. Petersburg College:

To support the mission of St. Petersburg College, the General Education program has the following goals:

 

1. Communicate effectively by demonstrating the ability to speak, listen, read and write in an organized and analytical manner.  (Communication)

2. Demonstrate effective mathematical skills emphasizing practical problem solving and data interpretation.  (Mathematical Skills)

3. Utilize the scientific method as it applies to understanding scientific and social phenomena.  (Scientific Method)

4. Recognize basic scientific principles underlying human influence upon the earth and its inhabitants.  (Human Influence)

5. Implement appropriate forms of existing and evolving technology for personal, educational, and professional purposes.  (Technology)

6. Demonstrate the ability to work effectively with others in a variety of settings  (Teamwork)

7. Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of the humanities and fine arts including participating in cultural activities featuring art, music, literature, dance and/or theater.  (Humanities/Art Appreciation)

8. Participate as informed and responsible citizens in solving social, economic and political problems in a multicultural and global society.  (Informed Citizen)

9. Recognize ethical issues and dilemmas in the per­sonal, business and social areas of their lives and apply ethical principles and logical problem-solving skills when making ethical decisions.  (Ethics)

10. Think logically, critically and creatively to solve prob­lems and make decisions.  (Critical Thinking)

11. Recognize the importance of lifelong learning process in the pursuit of personal, intellectual and career development.  (Life-long Learning)

Developing courses with college-level competencies to meet General Education goals

 

Faculty experts either individually or collectively develop courses according to established curricular guidelines.  These general education requirements are designed to provide the student with a broad concept of the world and a foundation to understand concepts in communication, science, math and humanities and their relationship to other cultures.  This curriculum builds to a complete program of study that provides the students with the skills necessary to become active and responsible members of our complex world as determined by the College’s mission.  The College publishes a complete list of general education requirements in the College Catalog, courses that meet the individual discipline area requirements in the College Catalog, and minimum written word count and grade requirement in the College Catalog.

 

The General Education requirements for the Associate in Arts degree, the Bachelor in Applied Science, Bachelor of Science in Nursing and the Bachelor in Science in Education degree consist of 36 semester hours of credit, which include the following:

 

Communications	9 credits
Humanities/Fine Arts	6 credits
Mathematics-Logic	6 credits
Natural Sciences	6 credits
Social/Behavioral Sciences	6 credits
Ethics	3 credits
Computer/Information Literacy Competency	no minimum required, competency must be demonstrated

 

The A.S. and A.A.S. programs have a minimum of 17 transferable semester hours of credit in General Education. The minimum area requirements for the 17 transferable semester hours are as follows:

 

Communications	6-9 credits
Humanities/Fine Arts	3 credits
Mathematics	3 credits
Natural Science	no minimum
Social & Behavioral Science	3 credits
Ethics	2-3 credits
Computer/Information Literacy Competency	no minimum credit hours, but demonstrated proficiency

 

Some A.S. programs, such as Nursing have pre-entry requirements that may be applied to the general education requirements.

 

Relationship of General Education courses to College Goals

 The goals of the General Education program are implemented through the following disciplines:

 

 

 

Sequence Map for General Education

 

The College has a systemic method of introducing, enhancing, and reinforcing all the General Education goals, through a General Education Program Sequence Map that identifies where the General Education Outcomes for the College Goals are introduced, enhanced, and reinforced.  In addition, the Florida Department of Education, in Rule 6A-10.030 - Other Assessment Procedures for College-Level Communication and Computation Skills, commonly referred to as the “Gordon Rule,”  has established a requirement for six hours of English coursework and six hours of additional coursework in which the student is required to demonstrate college-level writing skills through multiple assignments.  Each institution shall designate the courses that fulfill the writing requirements of this section.  SPC has defined this as 24,000 words, 14,000 distributed throughout Communications courses and 10,000 distributed throughout Humanities, Social and Behavioral Science, and Ethics courses.  In this way, the College deliberately engages students in developing skills, knowledge, and values throughout their academic career.  Although the State Board of Education eliminated the Gordon rule requirement last year, SPC has chosen to keep the word count distribution.

 

The General Education Program Sequence Map is shown on the next page.  For each major General Education goal, the course or courses within the General Education program the Sequence Map identifies when a course is introduced, enhanced, or reviewed, using the following legend:

 

I = Introduces the Goal

E = Enhances the Goal, i.e., adds new or deeper content

R = Reviews or reinforces the Goal