Each of the CTI levels is designed to equip students to be world citizens and leaders for the 21st century.
Introductory level: The introductory level, beginning with the humanities-based course The Responsible Self and courses in communication and mathematics, bridges the crossing from high school to college learning.
Second level: The second level offers an exciting choice of interdisciplinary courses grouped around four topic areas: Culture and Traditions; Science, Technology and the Human Experience; Power and Justice; and Sacred and Secular. In these courses, students learn how building bridges between the academic disciplines is a necessary part of learning in our fast-changing world.
Capstone: Finally, the capstone course will build bridges between the program's previous levels and the student's study of an academic major by applying questions of responsible, ethical citizenship to critical problems facing our society.
Core Curriculm Goals
The Core (roughly one-third of the total required credit hours for graduation) aims to provide students with a liberating educational experience and to accomplish the following programmatic goals:
- To provide a common experience of learning.
- To engage students — by teaching skills of reading and research, communication and language, quantitative reasoning, critical and ethical thinking, personal judgment and fitness, and by facilitating on-going experiences in the fine arts — to become lifelong learners.
- To enable students to apply liberal arts knowledge, skills and attitudes to evaluate authentic problems of human experience in terms of varied cultural and social perspectives.
- To challenge students to grapple with the meaning and implications of the Christian faith and other perspectives on how life ought to be lived and understood.
Core Curriculum Objectives
A liberally educated William Jewell College student will:
- Aquire the knowledge of, apply and show some mastery of: reading, research, communication, mathematical reasoning, technological applications, and the fine arts.
- Evaluate the crucial issues of human experience by a course of investigation that brings the academic disciplines together through interdisciplinary approaches.
- Think critically about several Christian traditions as well as other vital religious expressions available to humanity.
- Understand the holistic concept of wellness that includes the physical, spiritual, mental, and social.
- Understand the concept of servant leadership and have had opportunities for application
Writing Objectives for the Core
CRITICAL THINKING, LOGIC, ORGANIZATION
- Constucts a writing assignment with identifiable introduction, body, and conclusion.
- Offers an identifiable statement of thesis or purpose.
- Makes claims and provides convincing reasons in order to support claims.
- Critically evaluates evidence, including alternate or competing perspectives (Levels II, III)
RHETORICAL CONTEXT
- Uses language and information that are appropriate to genre and audience.
- Gives audience some awareness of the (student) writer's choice.
WRITING CONVENTIONS
- Consistently adheres to conventions of standard English appropriate to audience and medium
- Consistently adheres to citation guidelines.
