COMPETENCIES

Competencies represent fluencies, expertise, and skills that students will need to develop in order to live and work successfully in a rapidly changing, complex world. Students will need to be able to communicate both within their own cultures and across cultures. They will need to understand how knowledge and disciplines are organized and to have developed a capacity for the critical evaluation of knowledge and participation in the methods of discovery. The three Competencies are: 1) Foreign Language; 2) Writing; and 3) Research.

Foreign Language (FL)

Rationale: Duke has set internationalization as an institutional priority in order to prepare students to live in an increasingly diverse and interdependent world. Internationalizing the institution means that students must be given opportunities to engage with other cultures and to be exposed to ways of thinking other than their own. These perspectives come not only from around the globe but also from multicultural communities within the United States. By developing proficiency in a foreign language, students can develop cross-cultural competency and become more successful members of their increasingly complex local, national, and international communities. Through foreign language study, students have access to materials and cultures not otherwise available and which inform and enrich both the undergraduate experience and post-graduate life.

Beyond providing an additional language resource for communication, foreign language study substantially broadens studentsí own experiences. As students engage another language, thought, and culture, they can develop their own intellect, gain respect for other peoples, and learn new ways of thinking. Students need an awareness of how language frames and structures understanding and effective communication, and a study of foreign language improves studentsí native language skills.

Objectives:

We seek for students to:

  • develop sufficient proficiency in a second language to engage foreign cultures, histories and literatures
  • gain an understanding of the nature of culture in as far as it is embodied in language
  • bring a cultural perspective to bear to enhance understanding of issues of similarity and difference

Requirement: Students must complete one of the following:

  1. 100-level course in a foreign language (including equivalent courses in study abroad).
  2. Three semesters of study or the equivalent (including study abroad experiences). This might particularly be appropriate for non-cognate languages (less commonly taught languages) or if a student begins a new language at the collegiate level.

Criteria:

  1. Criteria will be determined based upon the Fall 1998 report of the Task Force on Languages appointed by Dean Robert J. Thompson (Appendix/Link 3).

  2. The requirement will be based upon a required level of proficiency. Satisfactory performance in one 100-level course will satisfy the requirement.

  3. No student will be expected to take more than three courses.

  4. The 100-level course may be offered in a department outside a foreign language department but taught in a foreign language. These courses will be designated as Foreign Language Across the Curriculum (FLAC) courses (Appendix/Link 3 provides criteria for FLAC courses).

  5. Study abroad experience will qualify as follows:
    • a summer session/semester/year abroad engaged in course work in a foreign language
    • a semester/year abroad in a foreign country with intense use of a foreign language (course work in the language not necessarily required)

Writing

Rationale: Effective writing is central to both learning and communication. As a result, almost all institutions of higher education across the country give an important role to writing in general education requirements. To function successfully in todayís, much less tomorrowís world, students need to be able to write and speak clearly and effectively. To accomplish this, students need to have a sustained engagement with writing throughout the undergraduate career.

Learning to write effectively is a hard-earned skill that needs constant practice; it is reflective, analytical, and iterative. An early experience develops the intellectual skills and habits of critical thinking appropriate to university study. Advanced writing-intensive experiences, on the other hand, link writing to various fields of study, providing students with opportunities for self-conscious writing, sustained interaction with faculty members, and significant independent thought.

Objectives:

Duke seeks to provide multiple writing experiences for all Duke undergraduates. We seek for students to be able to:

  • read in a scholarly and critical fashion
  • distinguish between expressive and argumentative forms of writing
  • analyze, integrate, and synthesize information and ideas
  • learn how to use original and source materials through traditional library research and the use of computers and the World Wide Web
  • develop familiarity with the format of academic papers
  • develop, support, critique, revise, and refine arguments
  • write clearly and engagingly
  • distinguish between and operate within different disciplinary contexts and traditions

Requirement and Criteria: A proposal regarding specific requirements and criteria is currently being developed by the Writing Task Force appointed by Dean Robert J. Thompson. That report will be submitted to the Arts and Sciences Council in the spring 1999 semester and subject to independent deliberation and decision. It is anticipated that the recommendations of the Writing Task Force will embody the principles regarding writing expressed above.

Research

Rationale: As a research university, Duke seeks to connect undergraduate education to the broad continuum of scholarship reflected in its faculty. Such a rich setting provides students with opportunities to become involved in a community of learning and to engage in the process of discovery. We seek for our students to move beyond being the passive recipients of knowledge that is transmitted to being an active participant in the discovery, critical evaluation, and application of knowledge and understanding. Given the mission of Dukeís faculty, its student-faculty ratio, and the presence of outstanding graduate programs, the University is well- positioned to provide this formative kind of undergraduate experience.

Engagement with research can be viewed along a continuum. At the most basic level, students can learn the procedures and methods for analyzing materials in research courses, producing a research paper or project appropriate to the discipline. On a more sophisticated level, students can engage in mentored projects, planning a project in conjunction with a faculty member, implementing the study, and analyzing results, as it typical of an independent study, lab project, or a capstone experience. Further along the spectrum, students can emulate experiences available to graduate students, generating problems and projects themselves, planning the design of an assay or hypothesis, and actively producing an original analysis, interpretation, or discovery, as typically constitutes an honors project. At each of these levels, the research process develops in students an understanding of the process by which new knowledge is created, organized, accessed, and synthesized. It also fosters a capacity for the critical evaluation of knowledge and the methods of discovery. Engagement with the research process better prepares not only undergraduates who wish to pursue further study at the graduate level but also those who seek employment in a rapidly changing and competitive marketplace. It equips them to be active citizens and leaders of the communities in which they are about to assume responsibility.

Objectives:

We seek for students to:

  • formulate a question, analyze material, and integrate their findings
  • engage research resources, both through libraries and electronic means, to understand how information is accessed
  • participate in a mentoring relationship with faculty through the interplay of independent and collaborative work
  • develop a product that describes or exemplifies their research, whether it be in written form or presentation in a public setting

Requirement: Students entering in 2000 and 2001 must complete one Research-Intensive (RI) exposure, either in General Education courses or the major. Subsequently, students must complete two Research-Intensive (RI) exposures, at least one of which must be in the student's major.

Criteria: A course offering a Research-Intensive exposure meets all of the following criteria:

  1. RI courses will encompass a broad engagement with the ways in which research is undertaken within a given field, with some attention to competing methodologies within a discipline. RI courses should impart an understanding of how knowledge in the discipline is generated, organized, presented, and accessed.

  2. Students can pursue research-intensive work in a variety of ways, including:
    • general education courses requiring a research paper, project, or product
    • research-intensive courses, such as preceptorships, project-oriented laboratories, and departmental courses focusing on disciplinary research methodologies
    • a structured series of small projects which convey disciplinary procedures and cumulatively fit the student to work in the field. These may include written critiques of original research or written assignments designed to convey disciplinary research procedures.
    • independent studies, preceptorials, and capstone experiences

  3. Courses designated as RI must yield a major document (or its equivalent), such as a research paper, a series of reports that build upon or complement each other, poster session, or performance, as deemed appropriate.

 

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