General Education

Student Outcomes

Spartanburg Community College engages in a process of quality enhancement through continuous assessment and improvement. In an effort to support the College’s mission, each degree, diploma, and certificate offered at the College has faculty-developed learning outcomes that are included in this catalog, and each course has learning outcomes included on the syllabus. Additionally, every associate degree contains general education competencies as delineated below.

Associate Degree General Education Competencies

Associate Degree Requirements

Every associate degree at Spartanburg Community College includes a minimum of 15 credit hours of general education courses as an integral component of the College’s graduation requirements. These credit hours are to be drawn from and include at least one course from each of the following areas: humanities/fine arts; social/behavioral sciences; and natural science/mathematics. In order to promote intellectual inquiry, general education courses present a breadth of knowledge, not focusing on skills, techniques, and procedures specific to the student’s occupation or profession.

Rationale

Spartanburg Community College has developed general education competencies that are designed to support the College’s values. The general education component develops lifelong learners through the introduction of a broad liberal arts requirement. While each associate degree may contain different courses, each program of study introduces students to six essential general education competencies.

General Education Competencies

Students who complete the general education graduation requirement will be able to demonstrate the following competencies:

• Write professionally/academically in response to a variety of texts and audiences.
• Speak publicly, listen actively, and respond effectively.
• Access, retrieve, synthesize, and evaluate information.
• Apply quantitative, qualitative and/or scientific reasoning to solve problems.
• Explain social concepts and behaviors using fundamental theories and methods of analysis.
• Apply analytical methodologies and diverse perspectives to interpret key works in various disciplines.

Spartanburg Community College has identified courses which, when completed as part of the general education requirement, will allow students to achieve each competency.

General Education Requirements

To graduate from Spartanburg Community College, each candidate for an associate’s degree must meet program specific requirements. All programs identify a minimum of 15 credit hours from the following course options. As a minimum, each student must complete:

NOTE: Courses in basic composition that do not contain a literature component, courses in oral communication, and introductory foreign language courses are skill courses and not pure humanities courses. Therefore, for purposes of meeting this standard, none of the above may be the one course designated to fulfill the humanities/fine arts requirement in the Principles of Accreditation 9.3.

NOTE: If a foreign language is chosen to satisfy a degree program’s Humanities requirement, the course must be at the 102 level or higher.

Exceptions/Course Substitutions: Students who wish to apply for a course substitution or exception to the general education policy may appeal to the Associate Vice President of Instruction. The general education requirement will not be waived by Spartanburg Community College.