Frequently Asked Questions

Some categories have prerequisites that are either required or strongly recommended.

• Courses in the WC category must have the following prerequisite in addition to any other requirements determined by the department: English 102, 132, 290, or 298.

• Courses in the AOC category are strongly encouraged to require the oral communication (OC) Volunteer Core course used in the program (e.g., CMST 210, 240; CE 205; PHIL 244) as a prerequisite. (Note that a course may be approved as either OC or AOC, but not both.)

Approved courses are normally carried over to subsequent catalogs, although each course is reviewed every five years to ensure it continues to meet the corresponding criteria. Please review the Guidelines for Revising and Removing Volunteer Core Courses for more information.

Individual courses may appear under more than one Volunteer Core category if the learning outcomes for all of the categories are met. For example, one course could be WC, AH, and EI as well as part of the student’s major requirements.

However, there are exceptions:

• Courses may apply for either OC or AOC, but not both.
• No course may be used to satisfy two Expanded Perspectives requirements.

Yes. The EI subcommittee is distinct from the N, R, and S subcommittees, so the course must be evaluated by each of the relevant subcommittees. As the EI subcommittee gains experience with the review process, they may be able to streamline the process for these designated courses.

Proposals are reviewed by subcommittees made up of faculty from a variety of disciplines, who identify courses that meet the criteria for a particular category and recommend approval of those courses to the full Volunteer Core Committee, the Undergraduate Council, and Faculty Senate.

The expectation is that students already take courses within their major in which disciplinary communication is sufficiently emphasized to meet the AOC designation. Many departments will not need to create a new course to satisfy this requirement.

Students’ responses to surveys indicated that they often felt frustrated by the belief that lower-level Gen Ed courses were not relevant to their selected major or degree program. EI courses are intended to create relevant learning experiences, often within a student’s major that situate the course content in a broader way, with dimensions of application, collaboration, reflection, or interdisciplinary connections. It is expected that almost every major will apply for EI designation for at least one upper-level required course.