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The General Education Program

The General Education Program (GEP) constitutes the heart of Kentucky Wesleyan's liberal arts education. It exists to ensure that all students will gain the basic foundation on which to build a productive and successful life.

Within the GEP students learn the skills required of leaders in the modern world, i.e., skills in analyzing and communicating. Students must be able to write clearly and effectively, speak articulately and persuasively, gain at least an elementary knowledge of a second language, use a computer appropriately, and understand the mathematical concepts necessary for examining the world quantitatively.

Students will learn the variety of methods used to study the physical, social, mental, and spiritual worlds. GEP courses offered by the Humanities Division expose students to people's self-reflection in literature, philosophy, and the fine arts. Courses in the Natural Sciences Division teach students the scientific method of inquiry and the compexity of the universe. Courses in the Social Sciences Division examine how humans relate to each other individually and in community.

The GEP also highlights a few disciplines for special study. Since we cannot enter the future with confidence without understanding our past, all students must learn our heritage by taking six semester hours in History. In addition, the human attempt to structure the world according to transcendent realities, Religion is required of all students. Since we believe that persons are not disembodied minds, we also believe that the care and maintenance of the body is important to the well-educated individual.

Kentucky Welseyan also recognizes that we live in a global community and that leaders in any location must appreciate the differences as well as similarities among the world's cultures. Therefore, we have included an Multicultural component to the GEP.

Finally, a leader must not only have broad exposure to many different kinds of knowledge, he or she must also be able to integrate information from many disciplines to find solutions to today's complex problems. The Integrated Studies component of the GEP leads students to recognize the inter-connectedness of all that they learn.