Purpose of General Requirements

The general requirements of Emmanuel College have been established and designed to ensure that every student experiences the range of skills and content that are implied by the liberal arts mission of the College. These include:

• the skills required for successful college-level work
• the intellectual breadth that makes possible a life-long engagement with and curiosity about significant knowledge, ideas, and issues
• the foundation for competent functioning in diverse and changing contexts
• the informed intelligence necessary for responsible participation in society

These goals are achieved through required courses drawn from a cross-section of the liberal arts disciplines that expose students to models of analytical reasoning, symbolic thinking, observation, creativity, critical thinking, moral reasoning, self-knowledge; and significant intellectual content from the fields of history, literature, the arts, philosophy, religion, the social sciences, the natural sciences and the study cultures outside the United States. Additionally, such courses require student work that enhances the ability of students to comprehend and to function intellectually in the variety of disciplinary modes that constitute the liberal arts.

The First-Year Seminar Program

The first-year seminar program comprises one-semester topical seminars unified under the theme, "Knowledge, Values and Social Change." These seminars are designed to introduce the first-year students to the ways in which the liberal arts construct knowledge; to enhance their abilities to read closely, analyze information, construct arguments and communicate effectively; to educate students in the expectations and values of the academic community, and to provide first-year students with an opportunity to work closely with a member of the faculty. Requirement: one semester, first semester.

• View First-Year Seminar Offerings

Domains of Knowledge

The knowledge, skills and habits of mind developed through the study of the liberal arts disciplines and their respective methods of inquiry, their concepts and vocabulary, their creative and critical processes, and their contributions to human knowledge are basic to the goal of developing the formed intellectual, aesthetic and moral sensibility assumed in a person liberally educated for life. The domains are (click for details):

• Aesthetic Inquiry (AI-L; AI-A)
• Historical Consciousness (H)
• Social Analysis (SA)
• Scientific Inquiry and Quantitative Analysis (SI; SI-L; QA)
• Religious Thought and Moral Reasoning (R; M)

The Capstone Experience

Each student is required to complete a one-semester capstone experience that is designed to provide an opportunity to integrate and present content and methodology acquired in the major. This course may take the form of a seminar, an internship, a research project or creative project.  As part of the general requirements of the College, one course in a student's program must deal with some aspect of United States society and one course must deal with a society or culture outside North America.