Important Information
- Running lists of courses approved for TOIs are now available:
- On the Registrar's Catalog Changes website. (Select the report for "GEOC/Common Curriculum Courses" and sort as desired.)
- Under the Resources tab on this website.
- Awardees for the Provost's Common Curriculum Grant Competition have been announced.
Upcoming Workshop
Filling Out the Course Action Request (CAR) Form
Wednesday, Aug 14, 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Online - link will be sent to registered participants
Presenter: Pam Bedore, English
This hands-on workshop walks you through the process of filling out a CAR form for proposing a new or revised course. It is offered to support faculty working on provost grants for new and revised Common Curriculum courses, but anyone who would like help navigating the CAR system is welcome to attend.
Please arrive with a complete syllabus for the course for which you are preparing a CAR.
By the end of the session, you will hopefully have submitted your CAR.
Register - https://fins.uconn.edu/secure_inst/workshops/workshop_view.php?ser=3112
Topics of Inquiry
Creativity: Design, Expression, Innovation
In any discipline, creativity is a process that turns novel ideas into reality. Courses in this topic require higher-order thought processes that imagine new possibilities. Through the application of innovative thought and activity, students will conceive and/or produce new forms of expression, ideas, mechanisms, and products.
Cultural Dimensions of Human Experiences
Human cultures are fluid and interwoven sets of values, shared beliefs, language, customs, and artistic expressions shaped by experience and history. Courses in this topic promote understanding of cultures of groups of people—large or small—through examination of their specific literary and artistic expressions, their ways of thinking and behaving, their achievements and struggles, and their evolving relationships to their past.
Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice
The dynamics of power and privilege produce inequalities at individual, structural, and cultural levels. Human identities develop through cultural values, social group membership, and lived experiences. How societies perceive and manage this cultural, social, and biological diversity can foster or suppress human identity in democratic life, thereby shaping social and individual experiences.
Environmental Literacy
As part of natural systems, humans impact the health and well-being of natural systems and of Earth systems. Conversely, natural and Earth systems impact human health and well-being. By recognizing critical environmental concerns, individuals within social, political, and legal systems develop knowledge, skills, and motivation to make informed and responsible decisions concerning human relationships with the natural and Earth systems and take actions to improve the well-being of other individuals, societies, and the global environment.
Individual Values and Social Institutions
Informed citizenship and leadership call on an appreciation of how society is organized on multiple scales, from individual values and actions to social institutions and economic systems.
Scientific and Empirical Inquiry
Knowledge production stems from an interplay of observation, data, hypotheses, and theory concerning the natural universe, social systems, and theoretical models. Through scientific inquiry in the form of problem-solving and questioning, a greater understanding of observable phenomena develops and facilitates well-reasoned conclusions and predictions.