2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog

Nov 26, 2024

2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog [Archived Catalog]

General Education Requirements

Integrative Studies
Senior Year Experience
Disciplinary-based Skills Requirement
Mathematics
Lifestyle Fitness and Wellness
Skills Development Options
Writing Intensive

Integrative and Experiential Core

A. Integrative Studies (23-24 hrs)

To fulfill the requirements of the Integrative Studies Program, all students need to take one course from each of the following 8 “Threads”. With the possible exception of a TYS course which is 2 hours, all courses are 3 credit hours.

It is recommended that FYS and INST 1500 be taken in the student’s first year. The 2xxx-level courses can be taken in any order. Students must have junior standing and have taken at least one course from four of the INST 2xxx courses before before taking INST 3000.

Other than FYS, all courses meeting INST requirements must have an INST-prefix. They must all must address the issues outlined in the thread description, and must engage with the assigned learning outcomes. Courses must be open to all Otterbein students, and must have no prerequisites. Departments may cross-list an INST course with a DEPT prefix, or may simply allow their students to count an INST-prefixed course toward a major or minor.

I. First Year or Transition Seminar (2-3 hrs)

The First Year Experience program guides your transition into Otterbein University classrooms and communities. Through a network of supportive resources, including a First Year Seminar, FYE nutures your academic skills and passions, and immerses you in the life of the college. The program encourages you to explore yourself and world, your beliefs and values, and your educational and professional goals. It also asks you to think about what it means to be responsible to yourself, to Otterbein, and to local and global communities.

There are also special sections, called Transition Year Seminars, offered for students who are transferring to Otterbein from another institution (a) have 30 or more hrs of transfer credit or (b) have already taken a First Year Seminar or are an adult student entering college for the first time. The goals of the program are the same: to introduce you to an Otterbein education and ease your transition into our academic community. However, the course focuses on those not new to college and allows transfer and adult students to meet other students in similar situations. Adult and transfer students may select to take traditional FYS or TYS sections.

II. Freshman Year Requirement

Identity Projects: Writing and Literature (1 course required)

This requirement area invites you to explore the self in dynamic and critical terms. You will consider the interplay of individual and social identities, and study the self as a catalyst of voice, action, and purpose. In the process, you will engage with questions that are central to personhood: How does the self relate to others? How does the self change across time, culture, and circumstance? How does the self find its place in the world, and know its impact? How does one find one’s identity and shape one’s core commitments, both as an individual responsible for one’s own life, and as a participant in the wider world with a shared responsibility for the public good? Courses in the thread will emphasize critical inquiry and foundational expository writing skills.

III. Sophomore/Junior Year Requirements

Self, Power and Difference (1 course required)

In this requirement, you will use the perspectives and methods of social science to explore the self in a diverse society. The social sciences deepen our understanding of how identities such as race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexual identity intersect and inform our relations to power. You will consider the ways in which individuals and groups navigate relationships while examining the cultural, economic, geographic, political, psychological, and social structures that make up complex and diverse societies. Together, we will discover how the social sciences inform our understanding of the public good and the collective behavior necessary to develop the larger goals of social equity and justice.

Reflection and Responsibility (1 course required)

Drawing on the disciplines of philosophy and religious studies, this requirement area encourages you to reflect meaningfully on your own values and explore the ethical dimensions of human existence. You will investigate and examine such important issues as individual and collective responsibility to the public good, the notion of a “good life”, and the nature and significance of personal and civic engagement.

Natural Foundations (1 course required)

In this requirement, you will draw on the disciplines of the natural sciences to explore our modern understanding of nature and the physical world and how we have arrived at this knowledge. Courses in this thread examine scientific developments, natural phenomena, and how science provides data that is crucial to addressing many of the issues facing society today. You will consider how the objective findings of science fuel the development of many advancements that are making the world a better place to live. At the same time, you will be challenged to consider your role individually and collectively in using scientific advancements responsibly in the modern world.

Creativity and Culture (1 course required)

This requirement area explores how human beings find and create meaning in our world, particularly through creative inquiry in the arts. You will engage with knowledge that encourages deeper understanding and appreciation of the role of the arts across a diversity of human cultures, including how the arts engage questions of human meaning and purpose. You will explore how the Arts contribute to the public good by suggesting and creating new possibilities for communities and cultures, as well as consider questions of responsibility - individual and collective - for maintaining and preserving cultural heritage from around the world.

Global Cultures (1 course required)

In this requirement, you will draw primarily on the disciplines of history and modern languages to understand the world’s histories and cultures through an intercultural lens. You will see that there is great variation in how and why people have organized their societies, and you will come to a stronger understanding of these societies, past and present, on their own terms. As a result, you will better understand how our modern world has come to take its current shape, including how competing notions of social and public responsibility interact on a transnational and global scale.

INTEGRATIVE STUDIES WAIVER FOR STUDY ABROAD OR OFF-CAMPUS STUDY

A student who participates in a University-approved study abroad experience has the opportunity to waive INST 2800. Students who complete one semester of a University-approved study abroad experience and receive the Global and Intercultural Engagement Card as a result of that experience, will, upon notification of the IS Program Director, receive a waiver of their INST 2800 requirement.

Integrative Seminar (1 course required)

This culmination of the Integrative Studies program allows students to see how different disciplines can work collaboratively and integratively to respond to vital topics and issues. Recognizing you have a life you are responsible for, these team-taught courses will encourage you to explore, confront, and clarify your core commitments. In the process you will better understand yourself as an educated, engaged, and critically reflective citizen with a responsibility to contribute to the public good.

B. Senior Year Experience (3 hrs)

The ART of SYE provides time and space for senior students to Act, Reflect, and address the Transition to life after Otterbein.

Designed for seniors, SYE asks students to shift their framework: from depth to breadth, from student to professional and citizen, from security to transition. SYE is a space in the curriculum that challenges students to pull together their knowledge and skills in ways that they can apply what they have learned to contemporary issues and challenges, take time to reflect on their education as a whole and its future uses, and identify and use resources as they move towards the transition to life beyond college.

Students must have earned a minimum of 90 credit hours in order to be eligible to register for an SYE. Students may complete the SYE requirement through a variety of courses and options that include:

One three credit course from the SYE subject area
SYE 4103
in combination with one of the following:
- A three credit hour internship (taken either in the semester preceding
  SYE 4103
  , or concurrently)
- A multi-semester field work experience within your major (with
  SYE 4103
  taken in either the fall or spring semester of your senior year)
SYE 4020
either with concurrent enrollment in a three credit project-based capstone course, or with permission of the Undergraduate Research/Distinction Program Chair
A study abroad experience with approval by the SYE Program Director

Disciplinary-based Skills Development

A. Mathematics (3 hrs)

Select any one of the following courses unless a specific mathematics course is required for your major as noted below. Except where indicated, these courses have a prerequisite of a C- or better in:

MATH 0900 - Prerequisite to College Mathematics

or qualification through Otterbein’s Mathematics Placement.

MATH 1210 - Nature of Mathematics
MATH 1220 - Quantitative Reasoning
MATH 1230 - Discrete Mathematics
MATH 1240 - Statistics I
MATH 1250 - Precalculus
(or
MATH 1700 - Calculus I
if placement allows)
MATH 1500 - Introduction to Mathematical Thought
(same placement level as
MATH 1700 - Calculus I
)
PHRE 1200 - Symbolic Logic

B. Lifestyle Fitness and Wellness (1 hr)

1 hr of Lifestyle Fitness and Wellness is required for all undergraduate majors.

LFW 1xxx - Lifestyle Fitness and Wellness

C. Skills Development Options (8-9 hours from any combination of the 3 categories below)

I. Language Proficiency

II. Oral and Written Communication

III. Experimental Design/Laboratory Skills

Writing Intensive Requirement

The Writing Intensive (WI) Requirement at Otterbein seeks to build and sharpen students’ writing abilities in both general education and disciplinary courses. Students are required to take three WI courses from the list below. Courses must be taken at Otterbein University to fulfill the WI requirement. Any exceptions to this rule are determined by the department.

The first course, which all students take as part of the Integrative Studies requirements, is selected from the following options:

The second and third courses are either housed in the major, or may be selected from the following list:

About Otterbein

Apply to Otterbein

Campus Life

On Campus

Contact Otterbein