Definition  of Arts and Humanities for General Education:

Arts and Humanities courses should provide a broad vision of artistic and humanistic themes. Guided by trained and experienced artists, designers, musicians, playwrights, actors, writers and scholars, courses in Content Area 1 enable students to explore their place within the larger world so that they, as informed citizens, may participate more fully in the rich diversity of human values and practices. Education in the arts and humanities challenges students by introducing them to ideas rooted in evaluation, analysis, creative thought, ambiguity, and knowledge framed by process, context and experience.

The broadly-based Content Area 1 category of Arts and Humanities includes study in many different aspects of human endeavor. In areas traditionally included within the Arts, students explore modes of aesthetic, historical and social expression and inquiry in the visual arts, multimedia arts, the dramatic arts, music and/or analytical and creative forms of writing. Students come to appreciate diverse expressive forms, such as cultural or symbolic representations, belief systems, and/or communicative practices, and how they may change over time. In areas traditionally included within the Humanities, students engage in modes of inquiry relating to history, philosophy, communication, theology or culture.

Criteria:

Courses appropriate to this category introduce students to and engage them in at least one of the following:

–           Investigations and historical/critical analyses of human experience;

–           Inquiries into philosophical and/or political theory;

–           Investigations into cultural or symbolic representation as an explicit subject of study;

–           Comprehension and appreciation of written, visual, multi-modal and/or performing art forms;

–           Creation or reenactment of artistic works culminating in individual or group publication, production or performance.

Courses bearing 3 or more credits in this category must be supplemented by written, oral and/or performative analysis or criticism.