The General Education Program at the University at Albany promotes breadth, coherence, critical inquiry, and public responsibility in the intellectual life of every undergraduate.

It promotes breadth through a distribution of courses in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences.

It promotes coherence by emphasizing historical, social, aesthetic, and philosophical contexts that shape knowledge and culture.

It promotes critical inquiry into the assumptions, goals, and methods of various academic fields of study.

It promotes public responsibility by emphasizing cultural pluralism, human diversity, a respect for difference, and a commitment to civic dialogue.

In addition, general education aims to develop the reasoning abilities, the writing, reading, and computational abilities, the interpretive, analytic, and synthesizing abilities, central to the intellectual life of the University.

The majority of General Education courses are at the 100 and 200 level. Students are encouraged to complete the requirements in their first two years.

The program includes four interrelated kinds of courses:

1. those intended to introduce the variety of disciplines comprising a university;
2. those intended to promote understanding of the diversity of social groups and practices in American society;
3. those intended to promote understanding of the world's cultural diversity and historical change;
4. those intended to develop writing abilities as a means of composing, learning, and sharing disciplinary knowledge.

A minimum of 24 graduation credits as follows:

Courses in the disciplines (18 credits)-Students must complete two approved courses (6 credits) in each of the following categories: Humanities and the Arts, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences.

An approved course in Cultural and Historical Perspectives (3 credits)

An approved course in Human Diversity (3 credits)

In addition, for students matriculating Fall 1997 and thereafter, a student must complete two approved writing intensive courses, with minimum grades of C or higher or S, at least one of the courses must be at or above the 300 level. For students matriculating before Fall 1997, a student must complete two approved writing intensive courses, with minimum grades of C- or higher or S, at least one of the courses must be at or above the 300 level.

If more than one category is listed for a particular course, that course satisfies more than one General Education requirement.

1. They offer general, nonspecialized introduction to central topics in a discipline or interdisciplinary field; while they may satisfy major or minor requirements, their purpose is to serve students who do not intend to pursue more advanced work;

2. They encourage reflectiveness about disciplinary knowledge; they explain what it means to be a practitioner of a discipline; they convey explicit rather than tacit understanding of the nature and importance of a discipline;

3. They encourage active rather than passive learning; they attend, as appropriate, to reasoning and/or aesthetic aptitudes, and to reading, writing, and computational abilities;

4. They are sensitive to the multiple perspectives of a pluralistic culture both within and beyond the university.

Transfer students who are recipients of an Associate of Arts (A.A.) or Associate of Science (A.S.) degree from a State of New York operated campus, a SUNY or CUNY community college shall be considered to have completed all lower division University at Albany General Education Requirements (this does not include the upper-level writing requirement).

In addition, transfer students who are recipients of an Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) or an Associate in Occupational Science (A.O.S.) degree from a State of New York operated campus, a SUNY or CUNY community college shall be considered to have completed all lower division University at Albany General Education Requirements (this does not include the upper-level writing requirement) if all the following conditions are met for the associate degree:

• the student has satisfactorily completed a minimum of 30 credits that are acceptable to Albany as "liberal arts and sciences" courses (consult the section of this bulletin entitled Liberal Arts and Science Courses);

• the associate program included a writing requirement and the student fulfilled the requirement;

• the student satisfactorily completed at least one course in each the following areas: literature or fine arts; social or behavioral sciences; and physical or life sciences.

By action of the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, all transfer students shall be exempted from all lower division General Education requirements IF they have satisfactorily completed PRIOR TO MATRICULATION at Albany all of the following:

• at least 30 credits which are acceptable to the University at Albany as "liberal arts and sciences" courses;

• one course in literature or in the fine arts or in a humanities department or with General Education suffix "L" or "E";

• one course in a social science or a behavioral science or in a behavioral science department or with General Education suffix "M" or "G";

• one course in a physical science or a life science or in a natural or physical science department or with General Education suffix "N" or "F"; and

  a satisfactorily completed writing course These exemptions DO NOT apply to any upper division General Education courses or categories of courses required of all Albany undergraduates, currently the requirement of a Writing Intensive course at the 300 level or above.

Writing:  Transfer students who enter the University at Albany with credit for an English Composition course or a two-semester sequence combined literature and writing course will be considered to have completed the lower level writing intensive requirement at this University.

The General Education requirements must be satisfied by all students matriculating in Fall 1993 and thereafter.

All students matriculating Fall 1997 and thereafter must satisfactorily complete with grades of C or higher, or S, two writing intensive courses, including at least one at or above the 300 level. (All students matriculating before Fall 1997 must satisfactorily complete with grades of C- or higher, or S, two writing intensive courses, including at least one at or above the 300 level.)

A writing intensive course uses writing as an important tool in the discipline studied, and is not designed primarily to teach the technical aspects of writing. The emphasis is on using writing as a means of sharpening thinking in and understanding of the subject.

Transfer students who enter the University with credit for an "English Composition" course or a two-semester combined literature and writing course will be considered to have completed the lower-level writing intensive requirement at this University.