Proficiency Course Proposal

Proficiency courses are courses that develop awareness, skills, or competency beyond the primary focus of the course.

It is presumed that courses maintain a sustained focus on the proficiency being developed, which means that the course repeatedly, over the duration of the semester, asks students to engage in application of the skill or competency or to build the particular awareness that is the focus of the proficiency. 

However, the particular skills, competency, or awareness is not necessarily the primary focus of the course.  

Each course may carry up to four Proficiency components. However, the Council on General Education recommends that courses carry no more than three, and ideally only one or two Proficiency components.

Ideally, courses at the 5000 level should not carry proficiency tags, as these can be graduate level courses as well as undergraduate and should not, therefore, be used to fulfill undergraduate requirement.

As noted, 5000 level courses are, strictly speaking, graduate level courses.  Ideally, therefore, no undergraduate courses should not be at the 5000 level.  If you have an undergraduate course that you think is a good fit for Proficiency components, it is strongly advised that you renumber it to the 4000 level before proposing it. 

Yes, a course can carry both a single Breadth component and up to four Proficiency components. Although the Council on General Education recommends limiting Proficiencies to three per course.  This ensures that students spend enough time in a course to properly develop each proficiency.

PREI courses are courses that introduce students to theories and methods in Ethics, Philosophy, or Religious Studies. They are more theoretical in nature, and are leading students to an understanding of how these disciplines frame knowledge and engage in analysis. 

CIE courses are applied courses, in which students are using existing frameworks to think through ethical issues in specific contexts. A course may not have both PREI and CIE. If a course is an introductory course that exposes students to the theories and methods of ethical inquiry, it is a PREI course, and if it is asking students to apply these theories and frameworks to particular individual or social contexts, it is a CIE course.  

Internship courses may satisfy Community Engagement (CE) if the internship in question meets a clear community need, rather than a purely professional need.

For example, an internship where an Accounting major works in an accounting firm would not meet CE, because there is no community need being met. However, an internship where an Accounting major interns at a local homeless shelter and provides accounting services to that homeless shelter might well meet CE, if, in addition to the time spent, the student spent time reading and learning about non-profits and the ways in which they meet community needs.

In summary, what determines whether an internship meets CE is whether the student’s engagement in the community benefits the community and does not serve, exclusively, to provide professional opportunities or experience for the student.