Department of Languages, Histories and Cultures Studies

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Program Overview

The Department of Histories and Cultures Studies offers a degree program leading to the Bachelor of Arts in English and Bachelor of Arts in History.

Note: Students desiring a Bachelor of Arts in English Education must contact the School of Education.

Educational Outcomes

English

Student Learning Outcomes:

1. Critical Thinking and Communication Skills: Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze, synthesize, interpret and evaluate, and the ability to compose organized and grammatically proficient essays, use diction and syntax which demonstrate maturity, and do research using appropriate research tools and the Internet.
2. Literary and Interpretive Skills: Students will demonstrate the ability to appreciate and analyze works of various genres, periods, and nationalities.
3. Humanistic Values: Students will demonstrate the ability to recognize human worth, dignity, and cultural differences.
4. Technology Competence: Students will demonstrate facility in the use of technology in the production and presentation of research.

History

Student Learning Outcomes:

1. Complex Cognitive Skills: Student will understand and demonstrates the ability to locate and gather information through libraries, the world wide web, and “field” research methods, such as interviews and surveys; evaluate the sources of information and the relative worth of different types of evidence: textual, material, media, oral, quantitative and visual; formulate information and ideas and debate arguments persuasively; critique different historical perspectives and explanations within a conversational setting; communicate to others information, conclusions, and arguments through writing and the use of tables, graphs, and other visual rhetoric; skillfully use the universal intellectual standards of clarity, accuracy, relevance, precision, logicality, breadth, depth, completeness, significance, and fairness to assess and evaluate the quality of reasoning used when considering each the elements of reasoning about historical facts, issues, and appropriately cite sources of information. 
2. Practical Knowledge and Competency: Historiography/Historical Methods: Students will learn how to apply information gained through research to a given situation; demonstrate command of a body of knowledge in History by reading, and learning how to interpret and discuss historical events and data within an accurate chronological context; reliably and consistently engage in rational thinking by recognizing and avoiding their own and others’ egocentric and socio-centric biases.
3. Human Differences and Commonalities: Interdisciplinary Awareness of Comparative/Global/Transnational Perspective: Student will learn how to appreciate, critique, and use material from other fields in the comparison of historical developments/problems across cultural/geographical boundaries, appreciating how temporal, cultural, and spatial dimensions affect historical responses. Exhibit the intellectual traits or dispositions of intellectual humility, intellectual autonomy, intellectual integrity, intellectual perseverance, intellectual courage, confidence in reason, intellectual empathy, and fair-mindedness.
4. Professional Values and Civic Responsibility: Student understands methods and modes of historical research and discourse that emphasize high standards of fidelity to evidence, tolerance of alternative approaches to obtaining, interpreting, and applying historical knowledge, and an appreciation and articulation of the indebtedness historians have to the work of others; identify the elements of reasoning when thinking about personal, professional, and civic situations, issues, and problems: its purpose(s), the question(s) to be answered or problem(s) to be solved, the requisite information or evidence required, inferences made and assumptions they are based on, concepts and principles being used, implications or consequences of the reasoning, and points of view or frames of reference being used.

Humanities

Student Learning Outcomes:

1. Graduates critically reflect upon and evaluate competing philosophies, values, ethics, or leadership qualities prominent in various cultures, eras, or religious traditions as assessed as “acceptable” on a rubric.
2. Graduates can explain and critique the arguments of others and can construct their own logically-valid arguments both orally and in writing as assessed as “acceptable” on a rubric.
3. Graduates identify prominent moral challenges facing societies and demonstrate awareness of various philosophical, aesthetic, ethical, and religious/theological principles that have historically contributed to the improvement or detriment of the human condition.

Modern Language

Student Learning Outcomes:

1. Students will demonstrate writing knowledge of basic target language skills to be able to read, write, understand, speak and pronounce the target language.
2. Students will learn the foundation and structure of Spanish that will facilitate its learning while improving skill and competency of their native language, as well.    
3. Students will be introduced to Spanish history and culture. 
4. Students will demonstrate the ability to use technology and the knowledge of library skills to present papers and reports.  Please refer to the document SPANISH LANGUAGE KEYBOARD when doing the writing assessment.  

Programs

• English, B.A.
• History, B.A.
• History, B.A. - Public History Concentration
• Interdisciplinary Studies, B.A. (Double Concentration)
• Interdisciplinary Studies, B.A. (Lifelong Learner)
• Interdisciplinary Studies, B.A. (Triple Concentration)

• Africana Social Sciences Minor
• English Minor
• History Minor
• Spanish Minor

Return to: The Rufus L. and Janice M. Wilson College of Liberal Arts