In Arts 310, without a concrete canon of works there is more flexibility to engage in a range of works, which is how students will encounter art.

Too firm a canon of works for Arts 310 may diminish its “reactive approach” to the subject matter, which is based on whatever events and shows are going on in a given semester.  This is how people generally experience art: they go to see whatever is being shown or produced at the time.

Interdisciplinary work is stressed in Humanities. It is an expectation, reinforced by our culture. The student experience in General Education is perhaps not interdisciplinary, but cross-disciplinary.  This interdisciplinary curriculum improves faculty life and faculty work; the student experience is really cross-disciplinary.  Faculty become more integrated in their teaching approach and extend their knowledge base. In class, students experience what experts in specialized fields have to offer; they experience that knowledge or expertise applied to a range of areas, and in this way integration places--that is, the integration occurs during student-teacher interaction. 

The non-expert status of faculty teaching in Arts 310 and in Humanities is valuable, because in allows faculty to model their enthusiasm for life-long learning.

The Humanities program currently works in the General Education program and is a curricular strength at UNCA.  The Humanities and the Arts program are seen as the moter driving our liberal arts curriculum.  They are our foundation.  This currently works.

There are examples of General Education science courses working--for example, the general education courses the Physics Department teaches.

Breadth is what gave me a superior preparation for graduate school; breadth gave me a preparation my peers did not have.  Teaching here after taking my degree here makes me see even more the importance of breadth.

Students get experiences that offer them the opportunity to think of the world outside of the box of individual disciplines.  They have diverse experiences.  We make assumptions that this particular combination of courses will achieve some of our objectives. 

 It opens some students up to possible majors—but so does the career center, service-learning and the FYE program.