The New Family Dinner Hour? Liberal Studies - Beyond the transfer check list

When Geraldine Ferraro set her sights on the vice presidency more than two decades ago many pundits suggested a woman could never make it to the White House. In 2008 it’s clear with vision, anything is possible.

In education, the challenge of providing students the skills needed to achieve optimal success in academics, in their chosen careers and in their personal lives also required faculty across the country to cast their eyes to the future.

In the 1980s these visionaries were at Yavapai College where they reasoned that while anyone can memorize facts, most successful people – and those who are the most adept and productive citizens – are those who read, write, and speak well, and those who have the necessary skills and judgment to do thorough research and analyze issues so they can draw their own well-reasoned inferences related to a wide variety of issues.

Welcome to the Liberal Studies Core

The Liberal Studies Core is a program featuring variety of courses designed to give students opportunities to select, examine and make connections among a wide variety of issues and problems. The core, comprised of six credits that fit into the 35 credit block referred to as the Arizona General Education Curriculum – is completely transferrable unit to any state university.

Recently a study for the Arizona Board of Regents determined that when students transferred to universities those who completed the 35-credit block did better and moved more rapidly and efficiently to degree completion. In other words, the liberal studies core developed by the faculty at Yavapai College played a part in providing these student-citizens exemplary general education options that facilitated their academic success.

Yavapai College is proud of the foundation it provides students who, after completing courses, enter the local workforce or transfer to institutions that award baccalaureate degrees. And it’s clear the Liberal Studies Core has played a crucial role in enabling students’ future success.

After all, with vision anything is possible.

Thanks to Kathryn Reisdorfer, PhD, Yavapai College instructor and general education coordinator, for her substantial contributions to this article.

Liberal Studies Core

To receive more detailed information on AGEC requirements please contact a YC advisor in Student Affairs.

• Western Civilization I, II or III
• Technology and Human Values

Choose from a variety of one-credit “Connections” (LSC) courses

• The City in Context: The Urban Center through & In Time
• Cinematic Variations on the Life of Jesus
• Evolution & Creation
• End of Life Issues & Options
• Contemporary Issues in Child Care
• Shakespeare on Film
• The International Experience
• Extraterrestrials in Human Thought
• Aids – A Modern Plague
• Grand Canyon Perspective
• Science, Fiction & Cinema
• Environmental Crisis & Opportunities
• The Beat Goes on – Rock Music & American Consciousness
• Sports & Society
• Media & Society