Liberal Arts Foundations Program
The overarching goal of the Liberal Arts Foundations curriculum is to provide students with the fundamental knowledge and abilities essential to their living worthwhile lives both private and public. The curriculum is based on the faculty’s belief that the best way to prepare students for living worthwhile lives is to provide them with a solid foundation in the core disciplines in the liberal arts (the humanities, arts, natural sciences, and social sciences), in conjunction with a multidisciplinary education in the specific areas of health promotion and physical activity and mastery of writing and mathematics competencies. The foundations curriculum provides a common, unified knowledge and skills base to students who will major in different subjects and who come from diverse cultural backgrounds. Foundations courses give students the shared knowledge and abilities necessary to integrate their foundational education with their major. Taken from the perspective of students’ personal, private interests, this foundation and its integration with specialized learning in the students’ majors enables students to live broadly informed, responsible, worthwhile lives. From the public perspective, this integration is essential to good citizenship in an increasingly global yet culturally diverse and conflicted world.
Fundamental Goal Areas
The foundations curriculum is divided into four basic, core disciplinary areas (humanities, arts, natural sciences, social sciences), one multidisciplinary area in health promotion and physical activity, and two areas of competence: writing and mathematics.
All foundations courses in the core liberal arts disciplines must meet the three fundamental goals of a foundational liberal arts education:
Students must learn the subject matter of one or more of the disciplines in each of the four core areas (humanities, arts, sciences, and social sciences).
Students must learn the fundamental concepts and research methods utilized in one or more of the disciplines in each core area.
Students must learn the relevance of scholarship in the discipline and in its core area to the student’s overall education.
All courses in the required multidisciplinary area (health promotion and physical activity) and competency areas (writing and mathematics) must meet the goals specific to each of these areas.
Goals for the humanities, arts, sciences, social sciences, health promotion and physical activity, writing, and mathematics are available at www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/fsonline/as/liberalartsfoundation.cfm.
Courses that Carry Liberal Arts Foundations Curriculum (FC) Credit
Courses that carry foundations curriculum credit are identified in the course listings using the FC designation. Many majors have specific foundation course requirements and students should check the requirements for their intended major prior to selecting foundation courses. For example, some majors may require specific science, math, social science, fine arts, and/or humanities courses. Courses in the student’s major prefix area may not count toward foundations curriculum requirements.
ENGL 1100 , ENGL 1200 (FC:EN) - 6 semester hours
Health (FC:HL) and Exercise and Sport Science (FC:EX) - 3 semester hours
Select at least one course in each area.
Humanities (FC: HU) and Fine Arts (FC: FA) 10 semester hours
Select at least one course in humanities and one course in fine arts from the following areas:
Humanities (FC:HU)
Literature (English or American)
Literature in a foreign language or in translation (See Departments of English and Foreign Languages and Literatures. Foreign languages 1001-1004 will not meet this requirement.)
Philosophy
Religious Studies
Selected Linguistics Courses (ENGL 2740, ENGL 3750 only)
Fine Arts (FC:FA)
Art
Communication (COMM 2020, COMM 2410, COMM 2420 only)
Dance
English (ENGL 2815 only)
Music
Theatre Arts
Mathematics (FC:MA) - 3 semester hours
Three hours of mathematics with the FC: MA designation that is at least equivalent to MATH 1050 or MATH 1065 or MATH 1066 or three hours of logic at least equivalent to PHIL 1500 (If logic is used to satisfy this requirement, it may not be used to satisfy the humanities requirement for the baccalaureate degree.) Many majors have specific mathematics course requirements and students should check the requirements for their intended major degree requirements prior to selecting mathematics courses.
Science (FC:SC) - 8 semester hours
At least one course must require laboratory work. Select one or more courses with the FC: SC designation from the following departments:
Anthropology (ANTH 2015 , ANTH 2016 only)
Biology
Chemistry
Geography (GEOG 1300 only)
Geology
Physics
Social Sciences (FC:SO) - 12 semester hours
Select courses with the FC:SO designation from at least three of the following areas:
Anthropology
Communication (COMM 1001, COMM 3152, COMM 3172, COMM 3390 only)
Economics
Geography
History
Political Science
Psychology
Recreation and Leisure Studies (RCLS 2601 only)
Sociology
Certain honors and interdisciplinary courses (for example, CDFR, ETHN, HNRS, INTL, RUSI, and WOST) with the FC designation may be used to satisfy foundations curriculum requirements. For specific courses that meet the foundations curriculum requirements see course listings. |
East Carolina University