General Education Core Competencies

With the implementation of the revised General Education program, Ferris State University is beginning to step away from its historic use of a course-based approach. The emphasis of General Education is now placed upon demonstrated student abilities in eight broad competency areas. Course-level student achievement will be primarily evaluated using embedded class assignments. Each of these eight competency areas are defined using several specific terms:

Competency: Competencies are broad areas of student proficiency that are evaluated as a part of the General Education program. The eight core competencies used at Ferris State University were derived from the AAC&U guidelines.

Operational Definition: Operational definitions are brief statements clarifying how the competencies are operationalized at Ferris.

Hallmark of a Bulldog: Hallmarks are clear statements of what our graduates will be able to do as a consequence of  attaining the competency.

Relevance: The hallmarks are followed by a brief explanation of why these particular competencies are important for our graduates in their lives and careers.

Ferris Learning Outcomes (FLOs): The learning outcomes for the competencies are the means by which student proficiency is determined. The degree of ability in these outcomes is evaluated using a four-level analytic rubric that was derived from the AAC&U VALUE rubrics.