General Education Requirements

OIE collaborates with and supports the GER Subcommittee’s efforts to assess NJIT’s General Education Requirements program.

Assessment

NJIT’s General Education Requirements (GER)

The philosophy of our GER program states that we are “dedicated to producing graduates who have the knowledge, skills, and motivation necessary to advance the state-of-the-art knowledge in their respective fields in addition to possessing a devotion to lifelong personal development as well as intellectual discovery beyond their discipline.” 

The GER also effectively ensures that students acquire the essential skills outlined by MSCHE: oral and written communication, scientific and quantitative reasoning, critical analysis and reasoning, technological competency, and information literacy. Through upper-level Cultural and Social Science Literacy courses, students also develop skills for critical reasoning and understanding of values, ethics, and diverse perspectives.

Please view the GER Catalog page to learn more about the requirements of the program and current GER courses.

A GER course must completely satisfy at least two-thirds of the core learning outcomes of a literacy to be a GER course.

GER Literacies

  1. Analyze society and culture using the perspective of the liberal arts, including: (a) communications; (b) ethics; (c) history; (d) literature; (e)  philosophy; (f) politics; (g) religion, and (h) the performing and visual arts.
  2. Conduct primary and secondary research through: (a) critical reading; (b) data collection; and (c) source evaluation.
  3. Compose effective oral and written artifacts through: (a) knowledge of process (i.e., composing process); and (b) knowledge of the conventions of  academic and/or professional communication; and (c) rhetorical awareness. 
  1. Analyze, define, and explain scientific principles, concepts, and mechanisms, principally within the domain of at least one of the following basic  sciences: (a) biology; (b) chemistry; or (c) physics.
  2. Investigate naturally occurring phenomena in the basic sciences using experimental methods, including: (a) design; (b) execution; (c) analysis; and  (d) reporting of findings. 
  3. Interpret scientific theories and concepts in at least one of the basic sciences in order to engage in the process of scientific deduction and reasoning,  including: (a) prediction; (b) hypothesis testing; (c) data interpretation; and (d) empirical assessment. 
  1. Define and explain fundamental principles, concepts, and mechanisms within the domain of mathematics and/or statistics.
  2. Apply logical reasoning, problem solving, and inference as informed by the principles of statistics, including: probability; data measurement;  distribution; and communication and representation of statistical data. 
  3. Apply logical reasoning, problem solving, and inference as informed by principles of algebraic analysis, including the foundational tenets of  trigonometry and calculus. 
  1. Identify, articulate, and critically analyze the principles, concepts, theories and/or experiential learning associated with contemporary social science  fields, including: (a) anthropology; (b) economics; (c) geography; (d) political science; (e) psychology; (f) sociology; and (g) managerial functions  (such as including human resources, organizational behavior, accounting, purchasing and logistics, marketing, technological change and innovation  management, entrepreneurship and commercialization of innovations, and project management).
  2. Analyze systematically human behavior and/or organizational behavior and strategies using data collected via one or more social science research  methodologies. The course content should include one or more of the following methods: (a) accounting and financial records; (b) case studies; (c)  content analysis; (d) ethnography; (e) experiments; (f) focus groups; (g) grounded theory; (h) in-depth interviews; (i) network analysis; (j) surveys; (k) textual analysis; (l) thematic analysis; and (m) quantitative analysis.
  3. Apply understanding of dynamic social systems, including their formation and the circumstances by which they interact with natural environment  and industrial organizations; and are upheld, maintained, and/or altered over time.
  1. Formulate a problem in various domains in terms of quantified, specified inputs and desired outputs.
  2. Design a precise and complete step-by-step solution (algorithm) that produces a desired output from a specified input.
  3. Implement a solution to an algorithmic problem using the syntax and semantics of a high-level programming language.

MSCHE Literacies

Requirements for GER Programs per Standard III of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education’s (MSCHE) Standards for Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation.

  1. Offers a sufficient scope to draw students into new areas of intellectual experience
  2. Expands students’ cultural and global awareness and cultural sensitivity
  3. Prepares students to make well-reasoned judgments outside as well as within their academic field
  4. Students acquire and demonstrate the essential skills listed below:
    • Oral Communication
    • Written Communication
    • Scientific Reasoning
    • Quantitative Reasoning
    • Critical Analysis & Reasoning
    • Technological Competency
    • Information Literacy
    • Study of Ethics
    • Study of Diverse Perspectives
    • Study of Values

Assessment of the GER Literacies

In collaboration with the OIE, the GER subcommittee recently undertook a comprehensive review of GER courses based on the NJIT and Middle States literacies, as well as the more recently defined NJIT sub-literacies. Departments and course instructors identified the literacy and sub-literacies satisfied by each course, empowering the subcommittee with the necessary data to confirm that all students have ample and diverse opportunities to experience all NJIT sub-literacies through the GER program. The review also formally identified the Middle States literacies aligned with each course to confirm that all students have ample and diverse opportunities to attain the skills defined in MSCHE Standard III.5.

The GER subcommittee, supported by OIE, is currently in the process of designing a system for performing outcomes-based assessment of the GER program to inform future continuous improvement of the program through the GER Course Approval Policy.

Documents & Resources