Policy: General Education

Document Number: 1.002
Title: Credit and Instructional Contact Hours for Courses
Effective Date: 6/13/2024
Revised Date: N/A

Policy Statement 

River Parishes Community College (RPCC, the College) upholds the Western tradition in higher education of including General Education coursework in associate degrees and specific certificate level awards that foster development of its students’ willingness to respect and accept behavior or opinions different from their own and to be open to new ideas.  By upholding the General Education tradition and philosophy, RPCC complies with the Louisiana Board of Regents’ Statewide General Education Policy and with the Core Requirement of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges’ Core Requirement on General Education Requirements. 

The concept of General Education, with its origins in ancient Greece, continues today in higher education with the goals of preparing students to communicate effectively and reason logically, as well as of enhancing students’ awareness of human behavior and the relationship between individuals and societies, understanding of and respect for the natural world, and appreciation of the arts and humanities.  Broad in scope, General Education aims to promote life-long learning and intellectual inquiry, and to ensure RPCC graduates' ability to describe, interpret, and analyze their world. 

Guidelines for Identifying a Courses as “General Education” 

General Education courses must be broad in scope, building a foundation for students to evaluate and appreciate the world in which they live.  General education courses should introduce students to a discipline, providing an overview of knowledge about or skills inherent in the discipline and/or enhancing an appreciation for a creative field and for work by others.  General Education courses must be based on a coherent rationale, be taught at the college level. 

Unlike courses required for a student’s chosen program of study that narrowly focus on knowledge, skills, techniques, and procedures specific to an occupation or profession, General Education courses in the humanities and fine arts, social and behavioral sciences, and natural sciences and mathematics support attainment of a breadth of knowledge and reinforce students’ cognitive skills 

General Education Categories 

The Louisiana Board of Regents identifies six categories of courses that share common characteristics essential to the study of academic disciplines. 

• English Composition – prepares students to communicate in a variety of contexts. 
• Mathematics/Analytical Reasoning – skills essential to all disciplines. 
• Natural Sciences – an approach to understanding the universe through the study of objects, phenomena, laws of nature and the physical world. 
• Humanities - offer a broad-based study of cultural traditions and the human condition and include language, literature, religion, history, philosophy, and communication. 
• Social/Behavioral Sciences – examine human behavior and the relationship between individuals and their societies. 
• Fine Arts - explore and value aesthetic creation and form as an essential means of conceiving and expressing the human experience. 

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges recognizes three categories for General Education coursework:  humanities/fine arts, social/behavioral sciences, and natural sciences/mathematics. 

Both the Louisiana Board of Regents and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges require General Education coursework for an associate degree.  The two entities differ in course disciplines that qualify as Humanities.  In 2010, the SACSCOC Board of Trustees published the following interpretation for the standard on the general education requirements for degrees: 

Courses in basic composition that do not contain a literature component, courses in oral communication, and introductory foreign language courses are skill courses and not pure humanities courses. Therefore, for purposes of meeting this standard, none of the above may be the one course designated to fulfill the humanities/fine arts requirement in [this standard]. 

Consequently, students enrolled in associate of applied science degrees (AAS) at RPCC must take an approved Humanities course to complete the General Education Humanities requirement.   

Policy Administration 

New courses intended to be General Education must first be approved by the Curriculum Committee, then reviewed for consideration as a General Education course. 

Existing courses must be reviewed periodically to evaluate alignment of the course content with the General Education philosophy. 

Courses to be deleted must be reviewed by faculty prior to approval to ensure that students have sufficient options for fulfilling the General Education requirements for a given category. 

General Education courses must be identified as such, along with the General Education category with which it aligns, in Banner and Degree Works.  These platforms should be reviewed annually to ensure correct coding of General Education courses for degree audits and awarding certificates of applied science and associate degrees. 

•