Educational Goals for the Baccalaureate at San Francisco State University

 

            San Francisco State University undergraduates will emerge from their studies with a breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding developed from integrating their course work and academic experiences in both general education and in the major. The abilities, knowledge, and qualities of mind fostered by general education will be reinforced, extended, and deepened in the major. Students should pursue a secondary focus in addition to their major (e.g., a second major, minor, certificate). We expect the following interconnected educational outcomes from a baccalaureate of San Francisco State University:

 

1.     Competencies for Lifelong Intellectual Endeavor: San Francisco State University's baccalaureate graduates will be competent in critical questioning and analysis, creative and independent thought, attentive reading and interpretation, written and other forms of communication, quantitative reasoning, research drawing upon a variety of resources, problem solving, and collaboration. Students should have knowledge of a language other than English.

 

2.     Intellectual Attainments: Graduates will be conversant with the principal domains of knowledge associated with liberal learning: the sciences and mathematics, the social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. They will be able to apply the modes of inquiry associated with these domains and will have engaged questions and issues of enduring importance. They will also gain in-depth knowledge and understanding of at least one major course of study. These competencies and attainments will provide graduates with intellectual foundations for careers or for advanced study.

 

3.     Appreciation of Diversity: Graduates will know, understand, and appreciate multiple forms and variations of human diversity, both within the United States and globally. Graduates will respect themselves and others. They will have obtained a historical perspective about the development of our diverse nation and will be able to engage in informed, civil discourse with persons different from themselves in intellectual and cultural outlook.

 

4.     Ethical Engagement: Graduates will have an appreciation of the necessity and difficulty of making ethical choices, both private and public, and will be able to identify and analyze the values that inform those choices. Graduates will demonstrate ethical conduct in their own work and their acknowledgement of the work of others. Graduates will recognize their responsibility to work toward social justice and equity by contributing purposefully to the well-being of their local communities, their nations, and the people of the world, as well as to the sustainability of the natural environment.

 

5.     Integration and Application of Knowledge: Graduates will know how to make connections among apparently disparate forms of knowledge and modes of inquiry across academic disciplines and between the principal domains of knowledge and their majors. They also will be able to place such knowledge and approaches within their cultural, historical, and sociopolitical contexts. Graduates will be able to apply academic knowledge to what is important in their own lives and to local and global communities.

 

6.     Qualities of Mind and Spirit: Graduates will take with them dispositions that facilitate lifelong learning and growth, including curiosity, a sense of wonder, intellectual flexibility and adaptability, a refusal to simplify what is inherently complex and ambiguous, a sense of responsibility and accountability, critical self-reflection, independence of mind, respect for wellness and healthy living, a readiness to assume leadership roles, and reverence for all that unites us as human beings across time.