The New General Education Progaram
The New General Education Program at the University at Albany proposes a set of knowledge areas, perspectives, and competencies considered by the University to be central to the intellectual development of every undergraduate. Through a distribution of courses in the Arts, Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Studies, the General Education Program seeks to introduce students to a broad range of disciplinary perspectives and areas of knowledge. Through courses in the category of National and International Perspectives, the General Education Program seeks to introduce students to the complex intersections of the local and global, and to the different perspectives that emerge from a focus on the national, the regional, the global, and the cross-cultural. Through courses in Mathematics and Statistics, Information Literacy, Written and Oral Discourse, and Foreign Language, the General Education Program seeks to provide students with the analytic, interpretive, and communication competencies central to academic success and to becoming effective citizens of the 21st century. Through its Pluralism and Diversity requirement, the General Education Program seeks to promote in students an awareness of human diversity and cultural pluralism, a respect for difference, and a commitment to civic dialogue as a means of negotiation conflicts in cultural and political values arising from diversity and pluralism.
In addition, the General Education Program in conjunction with student's majors and minors is designed to develop capacities for critical thinking and judgment. Whether selecting and pursing a major or choosing how to fulfill a General Education category, students need to think critically about why and how choices contribute to one's education at the University. As Albany continually seeks to improve its programs, students are not discouraged from questioning the value of any given requirement, since developing the capacity for such questioning is a key goal of general education.
Students are also encouraged to reflect on their general education program as a whole, to explore the relation of requirements to each other, to measure any given course against the stated goals for its specific category and for the program, and to use the experience of general education to develop their own understanding of what constitutes a meaningful university education.
Students admitted to the University whose basis of admission is "TRANSFER":
The new requirements will apply to all other students whose basis of admission is "transfer" and who matriculate at the University in Fall 2002 or thereafter.
For at least the next four years, the Office of Undergraduate Studies will provide through the print and web versions of the Undergraduate Bulletin and through other media as deemed necessary, a full description for both the current and the new general education requirements. Students who feel their placement within either system of general education requirements is inappropriate to their circumstances or may cause undue hardship may appeal to the General Education Committee through the Office of Undergraduate Studies.
In accordance with the Trustee's policies, if a student from a SUNY state-operated campus or SUNY community college has fulfilled, as determined by the policies of the other SUNY campuses, one or more of the Trustees-mandated general educational categories, the University at Albany will also consider the student to have fulfilled that category or those categories. This is true, even if 1) Albany requires more credits or courses for the given category; 2) the requirement is fulfilled by a course whose Albany equivalent does not fulfill the same requirement; 3) the student received a non-transferable but minimally passing grade in the course; 4) due to limits on total transferable credits, the student is unable to include that course among those transferred to Albany; 5) the student was waived from the requirement based on high school achievement or other standards different from those employed by Albany, or 6) the student was covered by a blanket waiver of the requirement by the SUNY Provost because the other SUNY campus was not yet able to implement the given requirement.
The same principle of reciprocity should apply to students who transfer from non-SUNY schools. If a course approved for transfer from a non-SUNY school is deemed to be equivalent to a University at Albany course that meets a general education requirement, the student shall be considered to have fulfilled the Albany general education category represented by that course. This is true even if 1) Albany requires more credits or courses for the given category; 2) the student receives a non-transferable but minimally passing grade in the course; or 3) due to limits on total transferable credits, the student is unable to include that course among those transferred to Albany.
