The Core Curriculum at Colorado State University helps students refine their academic skills and introduces them to areas of knowledge and ways of knowing. The Core Curriculum is also integral to the entire undergraduate educational experience. The objective of the Depth and Integration requirement is to ensure that all students who graduate from Colorado State University continue to develop their academic competencies and build upon the intellectual foundations and perspectives. Where appropriate, historical, technological, and global and cultural perspectives will be infused within courses and requirements for each major. To achieve these ends, each baccalaureate major is required to specify how the following criteria as indicated in A, B, and C below are satisfied in at least two courses in their curriculum.


A. Using Competencies

Each major must designate courses that build upon the Basic and Core Competencies of writing, speaking, and problem solving in an integrative and complementary way. Individual courses do not have to address all three competencies. At least 50% of the course grade must be based on activities that involve writing, speaking, and/or problem solving. Students much receive guidance and feedback to strengthen their writing, speaking, and problem-solving competencies. These courses may be in the department that offers the major or in other departments, as specified by the major.


B. Building upon Foundations and Perspectives

Each major must designate courses that build upon the foundations of knowledge and intellectual perspectives of Core Category III in an integrative and complementary way. Those courses may be in the department that offers the major or in other departments, as specified by the major. Each course designated to fulfill this requirement shall emphasize the connections between its course content and the concepts and intellectual approaches that exemplify Foundations and Perspectives category(ies) in ways that:

1. deepen students’ understanding by extending concepts and intellectual approaches of appropriate Foundations and Perspectives categories in the content of the designated course;
2. broaden students’ understanding of how concepts and intellectual approaches of appropriate Foundations and Perspective categories are placed in a different context in the designated course;
3. enrich students’ understanding of how concepts and intellectual approaches of appropriate Foundations and Perspective categories are further developed and transformed in the content of the designated course.


C. Capstone Course

Every major must require a capstone experience at the senior level that consists of a designated course or sequence of courses that offer the opportunity for integration and reflection on students’ nearly completed baccalaureate education. Capstone courses should enable students to:

1. synthesize the academic and/or artistic experience of the major;
2. analyze disciplinary knowledge with relation to broader areas of intellectual endeavor;
3. evaluate the interaction between their discipline and society;
4. apply appropriate core competencies, foundations and perspectives, and knowledge gained from courses in the major;
5. participate, where appropriate, in collaborative and in interdisciplinary activities relevant to the program of study.
6. make the transition into career or further academic degree programs;
7. identify their roles and potential in the larger professional and/or scholarly community and in society.