I. General Criteria:

All courses offered for the Ways of Knowing requirements should meet the following criteria:

• Extensive substantive content.
• Explicit introduction to problems within the area of inquiry and to various approaches and pathways toward understanding these problems.
• Attention to the creation, development, and modification of models, multiple theoretical perspectives, and interpretations pertinent to the subjects explored, currently and over time.
• Accessibility, when possible, to both majors and non-majors.
  

II. The Categories

Exposure to different ways of thinking in multiple disciplines is crucial to the development of critical and creative thinking. While the following categories will not satisfy every member of this community, they are intended to be all-inclusive and overlapping and to encompass the entire range of our endeavors. The committee believes that every corner of our campus will be able to provide or contribute to courses that meet the Ways of Knowing requirements. Furthermore, we believe that many departments will offer courses in more than one category.

Engaging Science and Technology (4 courses, two of which must be designated for scientific reasoning): Courses in this category are intended to provide students insight into the key methodological and epistemological approaches in science and technology as well as to expose them to a portion of the knowledge base that now exists. Two courses in this category should have an explicit, substantial focus on how we know what we know and how we have accumulated over time the body of knowledge on which much of modern society is based, and should examine the implications of that knowledge and its applications. These courses will be designed to enhance insight into how hypotheses and theories are developed and tested, and how observations and experimental results become established as scientific facts and form our shared understanding about underlying principles. The recursive nature of this process will be emphasized, in that insights from experiments not only may confirm the original ideas but also generate new and unexpected hypotheses. Two courses in this category should incorporate this theoretical perspective where possible, but will primarily provide an in-depth view of a more specific body of knowledge in science or engineering.

Students will be required to take a total of 6 courses in the following four categories. One course must be taken in each of the categories. The remaining two courses may be taken in any of these four categories.

Approaches to the Past: Courses in this category will give sustained, focused attention to aspects of the past that have exerted or continue to exert considerable influence on human history or experience. "History or experience" are here understood in the broadest possible terms. In addition to courses focused on major epochs (classical civilization) or complex historical phenomena (the Reformation, colonialism), courses in this category might focus on the emergence of scientific thinking, the rise of democracy, comparative religious traditions, the evolution of primates and hominids, or aspects of philosophical, artistic, or literary traditions. Where at all possible, courses should include primary documents, texts or artifacts and should offer multiple interpretive approaches. Preference will be given to courses that are chronologically broad in scope, OR comparative in focus OR wide-ranging in perspective. Such courses could be offered by faculty in a range of departments in all divisions or they could be developed collaboratively by faculty from different departments.

Encounters with Texts and The Arts: Courses in this category should invite students to analyze firsthand significant products of human intellect and imagination. "Texts and the Arts" is meant to be construed as broadly as possible to include major works of literature, philosophy, religion, art, film, music. The focus should be on helping students to learn how to read critically and independently. Ideally, courses in this category would emphasize multiple interpretive possibilities or standpoints--different methods for interpreting a novel, for example, or different approaches to sacred texts, or different ways of understanding a portrait or a building. Where possible, these courses would analyze works from more than one genre.

Interpreting Human Behavior: Individual, Social, Cultural: Courses in this category should provide students with an introduction to and some understanding of the psychological, social, or cultural dimensions of human behavior. "Human behavior" is intended in the broadest possible sense. Courses might focus on cognitive or linguistic phenomena, on social institutions or structures, or on comparative cultural development. These courses would communicate a sense of the range of approaches to the study of human behavior by 1) examining a variety of cultural or social contexts, OR 2) examining one culture or society from a variety of perspectives, OR 3) examining encounters between or among different societies, OR 4) analyzing experimental, statistical, or other empirical data in ways that are applicable to a variety of social and cultural contexts.

Methods, Analysis, and Inquiry: Courses in this category are intended to explicitly introduce students to concepts, frameworks of analysis, or paradigms that are or have been important in the discovery or creation of knowledge. With what concepts and methodologies do scholars approach their objects of study? Through what techniques do they evaluate different possible approaches? How do they decide what counts as good, true, right and good? These courses are construed as broadly as possible to include the theories, assumptions, and concepts that make inquiry within any particular discipline possible and productive. Courses in this category might, for example, compare competing hermeneutical traditions, or study competing epistemologies, or analyze the history of scientific inquiry, or examine various theories of design.