Human Experience

This Way of Thinking seeks to recognize and understand how humans have represented and constructed the human experience, and to thereby empower students as critical and creative agents in their own lives and communities. This Way of Thinking is the study of how human beings use texts, in different times and places, to understand, represent, and shape their world, and their experience of that world. Students will investigate, interpret, and analyze texts such as written works, spoken language, visual images, film, song, performance, or other cultural artifacts, in order to explore how human engagement with the world constructs meaning and shapes particular social and historical contexts. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which elements of expression are influenced by their place and period of production.

Students will explore human efforts to make sense of the world around them and the ways in which those efforts shape the human experience. This Way of Thinking recognizes that human experience may involve textual engagement with community, internal life, the natural world, and/or the past and future. Key to engaging this process is the act of writing, in which students learn to reflect, refine, focus, and clarify their own analysis as active participants in making meaning of the world around them.

In the Integrations Curriculum a course can be designated as either:

1. A Way of Thinking, AND/OR
2. A Thematic Encounter or Thematic Focus
3. CSD: Identity (CI) or CSD: Systems (CS), OR
4. INTG 100: Learning Foundations (LF), INTG 205: Transfer Seminar, or ING 300: Learning Integrations (LI), OR
5. Theological Explorations (TE) or Theological Integrations (TI).

Any course carrying one of the above designations may also have one engagement^ (except for TE, CSD:I, LF, and LI, which cannot carry engagements):

1. Artistic engagement (AR)
2. Experiential engagement (EX)
3. Global engagement (GL)*

Any course may satisfy the Quantitative Reasoning skill requirement.

Any course (except courses that fulfill Theological Explorations, Theological Integrations, Learning Foundations, or any course with a THEO course number) may also satisfy the Benedictine Raven.

Any 2xx or 3xx, 4-credit course except INTG 100: Learning Foundations, CSD:I, INTG 105: College Success, and INTG 300: Learning Integrations may satisfy the Writing (WR) designation.**

^Semester-length study abroad courses may carry both GLO and EXP.

*Classes entering the Fall of 2020 and 2021 are waived from the GL and BN requirements.
**For classes entering the Fall 2022 onward.

A Way of Thinking course may only carry one Way of Thinking per instructor; team taught courses may have two distinct Ways of Thinking.

Please note:

A.  The committee understands that some courses may still be in development. Prompts that ask for examples of assignments seek information about the spirit of what students will do and instructors are not bound to the specific details (e.g. writing prompts) provided.

B.  The committee includes faculty from a variety of disciplines. Please remember to briefly explain disciplinary terms, contexts, and/or texts to allow all the members of the committee to best understand how your responses address the question.

C.  As you are answering these questions, please keep in mind that students will need to produce work to assess their fulfillment of the related learning outcomes if applicable.

Go to the Integrations Curriculum - Faculty Resources course to review resources, such as:

• Teaching Guidelines,
• Reflection Prompts and Rubrics, and
• Sample Assignments & Activities.

If yes, you will need to fill out a separate application for either the Thematic Encounter (25% of 4-credit course at 100, 200, or 300 level) or Thematic Focus (100% of course at 200 or 300 level).