Sewanee - The University of the South
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

The overarching goals of Sewanee’s general education requirements and the broader curriculum are congruent with the University’s mission of encouraging students to grow in character as well as intellect. Sewanee trains students to be citizens prepared for a lifetime of leadership and compassionate service and provides opportunities in their classes and on campus to take responsibility for their own lives and the lives of their peers. Students are challenged to cooperate and collaborate, to engage in civil dialogue, and to analyze complex problems in the pursuit of creative solutions. The thoughtful engagement of students in coursework and other learning endeavors, on campus and beyond, builds the foundation for their active citizenship and for lives of personal fulfillment involving commitment to service, achievement, and a reverent concern for the world.

Sewanee’s general education curriculum encourages intellectual curiosity and exposure to the significant traditions and ways of seeing the world that our disciplines and interdisciplinary programs present. General education requirements are typically accomplished in the first two years of enrollment.1

Mentoring by faculty, which includes close discussion of available courses and programs, offers students solid footing to choose a major and to reap the longer-term rewards of lifelong learning.

Learning Objective 7. Encountering Perspectives: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. One course. Following Sewanee’s communal aspirations, captured in its motto Ecce Quam Bonum, this requirement examines the process of becoming a responsible member of one’s community through the ability to engage with and learn from perspectives and experiences different from one’s own. These perspectives may include intersecting experiences such as race, class, ethnicity, geographic origin, gender identities and expressions, sexual identity, political and religious orientation, and ability. Courses fulfilling this requirement will explore these perspectives while also considering the history of cultural, political, and economic struggle or privilege that have shaped how people define themselves or have been defined. These courses will promote greater self-knowledge as students examine multiple perspectives and reflect on the formation of identities.

Graduates from majors within the Sewanee Integrated program for the Environment a group of six majors, six minors, and a certificate described below.

A review of the Sewanee Integrated program for the Environment a The Sewanee Integrated Program in the Environment (SIPE) offers students an unusually rich array of curricular options with six majors, six minors, and a certificate. This expansive curriculum—including natural and social sciences as well as the humanities and fine arts—offers students multiple pathways for appreciating the ecological complexity and wonder of the earth we inhabit. The Program’s spread of curricular options across several majors enables students to develop not only depth of exposure to key fields and methodologies of study, but also cross-disciplinary breadth of understanding of society, economics, and the environment. This broad-gauged outlook is crucial for graduates looking to address the inherently interdisciplinary challenges of environmental study in today’s world. Students enrolled in our majors also share the chance for common exposure to the Program’s team-taught offering, “Introduction to Environmental Studies”, as well as involvement in various other collaborative opportunities and occasions for interaction across academic disciplines.

Program level sustainability learning outcomes include:

Students will evaluate the sustainability of land use by quantifying elemental cycles in natural and human-altered ecosystems

Students will have an understanding of the environmental impact of modern agriculture and the foundations of sustainability, with specific reference to the ecology of sustainable agriculture

Students will understand the historical origins and development of the discourses of
sustainability, sustainable development, and the green economy

All 183 students are from the single program: SIPE, referred to above.
This is the only program included to represent the 183 students. These students are exposed to different courses of studies within the SIPE program; therefore, their learning outcomes differ slightly and are built into the courses that each student selects. This being said, there are specific courses that require sustainability outcomes in each pathway within the SIPE program and they are listed above.