The Liberal Arts Inquiry

The Liberal Arts Inquiry (LAI) endows students with the fundamental skills essential to effective learning and scholarship. It also challenges them to examine their own values and the values of society. By integrating the LAI with an area of concentration and carefully chosen elective courses, students obtain an education that offers both breadth of learning and depth of understanding.

Every student working towards a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree is required to successfully complete, in each of the categories listed below, one or more courses for a total of at least 3 credits (except for the WD which must be at least 2 credits). If a course is approved for more than one Liberal Arts Inquiry category, it will satisfy each of those requirements simultaneously. Courses taken to fulfill the Liberal Arts Inquiry must be taken for a numeric grade or evaluation, except in those instances where a course is offered only on a Credit/No Credit basis. Independent study courses cannot carry LAI designations.

First- Year Seminar (FYS)

In the First-Year seminar, students will begin to demonstrate critical thinking, disciplinary awareness, and integrative practice. They will show the ability to articulate connections and adapt them to new experiences, settings, questions, and ideas. (Some FYS’s may serve one additional LAI requirement).

Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

articulate an awareness of resources and student responsibilities that promote academic success and psychological and physical well-being.
critically engage disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary content contexts and questions.

Students fulfill this requirement by completing one course that bears the appropriate designation.

Areas of Inquiry

A single course may satisfy at most two Areas of Inquiry outcomes, only one of which can be an Inquiries into Practices outcome. Additionally, these courses may host up to two embedded experiences. At least four disciplines (programs or departments) must be represented in the collection of courses that satisfy the Area of Inquiry requirements.

Inquiries into Practices across the Liberal Arts (C, H, N, and S, and L)

A broad, liberal-arts education requires sampling the disparate practices we use to explore and create: Creative Practice, Humanities Practice, Natural Sciences Practice, and Social Scientific Practice, and World Language Practice.

Creative Practice (C): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

use the tools and techniques specific to a creative medium.
reflect critically on their own and others’ endeavors.

Humanities Practice (H): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

use the analytic methods, terminology, and theories of at least one humanistic discipline.
identify and analyze the ambiguities inherent in the construction of meaning and value.

Natural Scientific Practice (N): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

make use of methods appropriate to field, laboratory, or experimental setting to acquire and analyze measurable empirical evidence.
construct knowledge of the natural world through interpretation of measurable, empirical evidence.

Social Scientific Practice (S): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

comprehend how different methods and types of evidence are used in the study of the social world.
construct knowledge of the social world through the analysis of empirical evidence of the social world.

World Language Practice (L): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

practice communication and modes of learning specific to language study.
construct knowledge of culture specific to a particular linguistic community.

Students fulfill the requirements of this category by completing five appropriately designated courses, one from each of five areas; no more than two can bear the same department/program alpha.

Inquiries into Self and Society (APW, ESS, CPI, and TG)

In a highly connected but also complex and fractured world, individuals and communities draw on values and beliefs to create systems of meaning, which inform their thoughts and actions and can guide appropriate and ethical action. Preparing to be global citizens, students will explore how people make sense of the world in diverse ways, even as they question received assumptions and cultural conventions.

Analyzing Perspectives and Worldviews (APW): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

identify and define differences in ethical worldviews and systems of meaning.
articulate and/or critique received assumptions and cultural conventions.

Evaluating Self in Society (ESS): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

identify and define societal practices and cultural assumptions.
articulate and/or critique how their own positions and assumptions reflect and impact society.

Critiquing Power and Inequalities (CPI): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

identify and define the operation of power, privilege, and inequality.
articulate and/or critique the ways these forces have operated, been resisted, and/or transformed.

Thinking Globally (TG): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

identify and define forms of global interconnectivity and how they have been embraced, resisted and/or transformed.
articulate and/or assess the ethical complexities and challenges inherent to diverse human responses to global processes.

Students fulfill the requirements of this category by completing courses that bear the four designations; since a single course may bear up to two of these designations, two to four courses may be required.

Literacies and Skills

No course can satisfy more than 2 embedded experiences.

Community Engagement & Reflection Embedded Experience (CER)
Students will participate in, and reflect on, efforts to help address problems faced by individuals and communities. Students will engage in active citizenship, using community-based learning to explore their role in society as agents for change.

Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

describe problems and challenges faced by the individuals or communities with whom the student served.
reflect on their personal growth and development as responsible citizens during their service.
analyze organizations and communities using knowledge acquired through community service.

See the Community Service and Engagement section of this catalog for a discussion of the variety of ways in which this requirement can be satisfied.

Information and Media Literacy (IMLI and IMLA)
Ideas, perceptions, knowledge, and values are represented via information. Media are the vehicles through which such information is communicated, whether print, visual, audio, or digital. When conceived jointly, information and media literacy involves the ability to interpret and critically negotiate information as well as to create meaning via information. Courses designated as satisfying the IML requirement will devote a significant portion of instructional and student production to IML concepts and skills.

Introductory Embedded Experience (IMLI): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

assess what types of information are needed and use appropriate tools to locate and access that information.
evaluate and critically contextualize a variety of information found across diverse media.
make judicious use of the collected information and sources given their relevance to achieving a specific goal.

NOTE: All courses fulfilling WR/IMLI also fulfill IMLI.

Advanced Embedded Experience (IMLA): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to

select, interpret and contextualize information within the conditions of its production, distribution, and use.
synthesize information from multiple sources to generate ideas, solve problems and/or develop compelling arguments.

Students complete the requirement of this category by taking courses with these embedded-experience designations.

Oral Communication Embedded Experience (OC)
Oral communication is an essential skill needed in both professional and personal lives. The goal of the embedded speaking experience is to provide focused opportunities for students to learn public speaking skills which enable them to be more comfortable and confident when communicating their ideas in an oral format. Students will complete a minimum of two presentations of at least five minutes each.

Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to

prepare an organized, coherent, and well-supported oral presentation that is appropriate for its purpose and audience.
effectively communicate ideas and positions orally, while constructively engaging their audience.

Students complete this requirement by taking one course with this embedded-experience designation.

Quantitative Reasoning (QRF and QRE)
An ever-growing wealth of quantitative data calls for the ability to use numerical information appropriately when solving problems and constructing sound arguments. In courses in this category, students will explore contextual problems involving quantitative relationships by means of numerical, symbolic, and visual representations. These courses focus on creating and discussing models; making appropriate assumptions; and deducing consequences or making predictions. Finally, they foster critical analysis of the uses and limitations of quantitative information and its representations.

Quantitative Reasoning Foundation (QRF): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to

solve contextual problems involving quantitative relationships by means of numerical, visual, and symbolic representations.
construct, refine, and apply quantitative models to draw well-reasoned conclusions.
identify potential limitations to models and analyses, including restrictive assumptions, uncertainties in data, and errors in reasoning.

Quantitative Reasoning Embedded Experience (QRE): Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to

solve contextual problems involving quantitative relationships by means of numerical, visual, or symbolic representations in the context of specific discipline(s).
construct, refine, or apply quantitative models to draw well-reasoned conclusions in the context of specific discipline(s).
identify potential limitations to models and analyses, such as: restrictive assumptions, uncertainties in data, and errors in reasoning.

Students complete the requirement of this category by taking one course with the QRF designation and one with the QRE embedded-experience designation.

Writing (WF, WR, and WD)
Writing, as thinking in action, is both a method of disciplined inquiry and way of representing an informed position based on a sophisticated awareness of situation, genre, and convention. Writing as a practice occurs throughout the curriculum, and it promotes responses to complex ideas and scholarly conversations, as well as the production of arguments that question various assumptions, values, and modes of reasoning.

Academic Writing Foundations (WF): In the foundational courses, students will focus on academic reading and writing strategies.

Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

use writing to develop ideas and to communicate effectively with others.
use a vocabulary about writing to explain the choices and processes they use for effective writing.
recognize writing as a social activity through the integration of feedback across multiple drafts.

We offer three distinct course categories to support achieving the Writing Foundations competence:

ENGL X04: Writing Studio
Writing Across the Curriculum WF (WF-designated courses in any area of study)
ENGL 100: Analytic Reading and Writing

With guidance from writing faculty, you will determine the combination of one or two courses that will best support your learning and your progress toward your goals and set that combination as your Writing Foundations requirement. Once you choose your courses, the courses become part of your graduation requirements. To make revisions to your requirements, please contact the Director of Writing before the deadline to add courses in your second semester.

See the College Writing website for more details about these courses: https://www.redlands.edu/lai-writing-requirements/

Research and Information & Media Literacy Introduction Embedded Experience (WR/IMLI)

In the first embedded experience, students within the context of discipline-based inquiry will extend the foundations by focusing on information fluency, research strategy, and practice in composing reference-dense texts (also satisfies IMLI requirement which means it counts as 2 embedded experiences). Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to:

execute appropriate research strategies and practices addressing a given audience and/or task.
compose a reference-dense text that conforms to established citation conventions.
communicate learning from research through the effective integration of feedback across multiple drafts.

Writing in the Discipline Embedded Experience (WD)

In the second embedded experience, students will focus on the kinds of writing and reasoning characteristically used in the field. This is an upper division writing experience embedded in the major’s coursework. The course builds directly on WF and WR/IML. 300-400 level. (2-4 credits)

Students who have gained competence will demonstrate the ability to

address disciplinary questions and projects through writing.
communicate ideas using recognizable disciplinary conventions and forms.
apply disciplinary writing and research strategies through the integration of feedback across multiple drafts.

Students complete the requirements of this category by taking the course(s) appropriate for their WF placement and two more courses with the WR/IMLI and WD designations.

General Education Program

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