General Education

Welcome to the General Education Program Site!

July 10, 2012 By Istvan L. Varkonyi

GenEd is focused on making connections both locally as well as globally.

GenEd makes connections from academic knowledge to experience.  A course in educational policy takes students into schools and community centers.  A course in sustainability challenges them to design a solution for storm-water run-off.   A course in creativity assigns them to go to First Friday to interview an artist.

“The Philadelphia Experience (PEX)” has become a hallmark of the new GenEd, with many courses taking students into the city for direct encounters connected to their studies.  A science course takes students to the Waterworks to study 19th century sewage treatment.

These encounters leverage the interest our students already have in Philadelphia.  From global terrorism to global climate change, from digital mapping to the future of television, GenEd classes will involve looking at cutting edge issues from multiple angles.

These and other modes of stretching and contextualizing traditional disciplinary content prepare our students to deal with a rapidly globalizing world, in which the resolution of complicated issues increasingly calls upon the ability to see a problem from many angles and to synthesize divergent perspectives.

GenEd courses make connections across areas of study from a global perspective as illustrated in these courses:

•  Language and Society; Latin American Media; Development and Globalization.
• War & Peace; Transnational Cinema.

GenEd makes connections to current controversies from a local perspective as illustrated in these courses:

• Philadelphia Arts & Culture: Public Places, Private Spaces; Religion in Philadelphia.
• Sounds of a Revolution; Landscape of American Thought.

Ultimately, GenEd is about equipping our students to make connections between what they learn, their lives and their communities.