FYS in the General Education Curriculum
Understanding FYS in Scranton’s GE
The General Education Curriculum has the goal of affording students the opportunity to “become liberally educated in the Ignatian tradition.” Included among the component parts of this goal is that students become integrated as individuals within their various communities. The FYS is especially orients to the “personal” aspects of this integration; each student needs to know themself as especially equipped to contribute in unique ways to our shared human life, lived as it is within particular communities such as family, town, country or specific communities of learning or worshiping . The intimate setting of the FYS, with its accent on discussion and reflection, should facilitate this personal integration.From the Թ’s Academic Catalog
First Year Seminars will provide students with opportunities to work closely with a member of the faculty as they explore important intellectual questions and become immersed in the life of the mind through an exploration of a variety of academic topics. In the course of the seminar, students will become familiar with the Թ’s Ignatian identity and mission and address important transition-to-college issues. Students will choose from seminars that address a wide variety of different topics, and which can function as a major course, a general education course or an elective. Each seminar will enroll no more than 18 students so as to maximize interaction with the professor and among students.Student Learning Outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes: At the completion of coursework satisfying Level 1, Foundational: First-Year Seminar (FYS), the student will be able to:
2. Contribute to intellectual discussions.
3. Articulate components of the Ignatian identity and mission of The Թ.
4. Demonstrate knowledge and competencies necessary to acclimate to the intellectual and functional life of the university
Brief History of the FYS at Scranton
Before 2012 the First Year Seminar at the Թ was a 1 credit course, graded pass/fail, that was mainly concerned with orienting students to Թ facilities and to their major. The change to a 3 credit academic arose as faculty and administrators deliberated about the need not only to orient students to Թ life, but also to give them a fuller sense of the Ignatian identity and commitments of the Թ, and start them off on an enriching path of intellectual inquiry, a path they could pursue well only as they developed and honed skills and capacities such as reading texts closely and critically, effectively articulating points orally, and writing clearly and thoughtfully.
It was thought that these educational goals would best be pursued in a small seminar environment (maximum 18 students), where students could come to know their peers and instructor well, and where, because of lower student numbers, full-time instructors could devote more time to mentoring students, attending to their individual progress. These full-time instructors would be themselves engaged scholars each with expertise in specific disciplines. Each FYS would have its own fulsome content, determined by the professor working in conjunction with his or her department. This content could follow the specifications of courses already existing in the catalog, including some courses already required in the GE curriculum. In such a case, the FYS could satisfy not only the FYS requirement, but also the other GE requirement. Some FYSs, however, would stand on their own, thereby encouraging faculty and students to pursue interesting topics not otherwise covered in the GE curriculum.
The 3 credit FYS was piloted in 2011, then made a requirement for all incoming students in fall, 2012. Since then, many different faculty and departments have added new twists to the topical orientation of their FYSs. New offerings are being encouraged each year. As well, all FYSs have come to share certain standard features, such as discussion of the first-year read and the annual Ignatian Values in Action Lecture that relates to it.