General Education

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Cardinal Core Curriculum

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The Cardinal Core Curriculum begins Fall 2021 for new students. The Cardinal Core Curriculum provides a rigorous and robust general education experience as an essential component of the baccalaureate degree. The program is designed to allow exploration of a wide range of topics and ways of thinking in preparation for life as a 21st-century citizen.

The Foundation

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The Foundation is a set of courses and competencies designed to introduce new students to academic life at SUNY Plattsburgh. The Foundation prepares students with essential skills as they examine their roles and identities as members of a pluralistic society.

• Cardinal Foundation Seminar
• Writing
• Information literacy
• Mathematics

Core Categories

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There are six core categories in the Cardinal Core Curriculum, reflecting a diversity of core knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences. Core skills of communication, critical thinking, discovery and inquiry, and quantitative reasoning are integrated throughout, with focus on the core perspectives of global awareness, individual development and social justice.

• Human Communities: Courses in this area promote a critical self-awareness of individuals’ roles and responsibilities within communities by examining how people interact with each other and in groups.

• Individual Expression: Courses in this area encourage students to reflect on their roles within a diverse society through exploration of the multiple ways we reason, engage with, document, and creatively represent or express the range of human experience.

• Natural World: Courses in this area explore the scientific concepts, models and methods necessary to study natural phenomena that affect the global community.

• Quantitative Reasoning: Courses in this area develop and utilize quantitative skills to address practical problems in order to better understand the world.

• U.S. Identities: Courses in this area explore communities, histories, and institutions within the United States to engage students in critical examination of their roles in American society.

• World Cultures: Courses in this area explore communities, histories, and institutions outside the United States to engage students in critical examination of their roles in a global society

Guidelines for the Cardinal Core Curriculum

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• Credit Requirements

  Students who enter SUNY Plattsburgh as first time students must complete the Cardinal Core Curriculum. Transfer students who have earned 24 or more credits while enrolled in college are exempt from the Cardinal Foundation Seminar, and the upper division credit requirement in the Cardinal Core Categories, completing the SUNY General Education Requirement instead.

  The Cardinal Core Curriculum requires a minimum of 33 credits, consisting of the following:

  • Cardinal Foundation Seminar — 3 credits
  • Fundamental Written Communication — 3 credits
  • Fundamental Research Skills — 1 credit (or 0 credit proficiency)
  • Cardinal Core Categories — 27 credits total, a minimum of one course from each of six categories. At least six credits must be upper division. No more than three courses may be taken with the same prefix (except HON). 
• Prerequisites

  In general, lower-level courses in the Cardinal Core Curriculum do not have prerequisites. However, Cardinal Core Curriculum courses that build on skills in world language acquisition or higher order mathematics may require prerequisites for enrollment if the prerequisite can also be met through a commonly available proficiency. In other words, if students can demonstrate readiness for a particular course through a proficiency or placement test, that proficiency (or its equivalent course) is acceptable as a prerequisite to a CCC course of any level. In these instances, students will not be given CCC credit for the proficiency, but only for courses they complete at the collegiate level. Students will be given CCC credit for one course in a skill-building sequence.

  Upper level courses in the Cardinal Core Curriculum generally should not require specific disciplinary knowledge to enroll in the course. Suitable prerequisites may include having completed any lower-level course in the same category, or a particular class standing. For example, a prerequisite could be “any human communities course” or “any course in natural world category,” or “sophomore standing or higher.” In addition, foundation courses (ENG 101; MAT 101 or equivalent; LIB 190; CFS 1889) are acceptable prerequisites.

• Competencies

  For information about the English Placement Questionnaire and meeting mathematics and informational literacy competencies, refer to the Competency & Placement webpage.

Cardinal Core Curriculum Resources for Faculty

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• Cardinal Core Curriculum Instructor’s Site (Brightspace)
• Cardinal Core Curriculum Plan: A General Education Program for the 21st-Century Citizen (Approved by Faculty Senate, March 2023)