SUNY Oneonta’s General Education Program, Dragon Academy, is effective for students matriculating Fall 2023 who have not yet completed SUNY Gen Ed requirements
3 Core Competencies:
Critical Thinking and Reasoning
Students will
- clearly articulate an issue or problem;
- identify, analyze, and evaluate ideas, data, and arguments as they occur in their own or others’ work;
- acknowledge limitations such as perspective and bias; and
- develop well-reasoned (logical) arguments to form judgments and/or draw conclusions.
Information Literacy
Students will
- locate information effectively using tools appropriate to their need and discipline;
- evaluate information with an awareness of authority, validity, and bias; and
- demonstrate an understanding of the ethical dimensions of information use, creation, and dissemination
Global Literacy
Students will
- decipher the interdependencies, relationships, and linkages (historical or contemporary) that exist between the Global North and Global South.
- examine global issues of sustainability.
- interrogate global relations in terms of questions of social justice.
- be able to analyze the history and diversity of the U.S. and its relationship to the world.
Students must complete a min. of 2 course experiences per competency (tracked in Degree Works):
To satisfy the competencies requirement, students must complete one Red Dragon Seminar (RDS) and Knowledge and Skills Area courses that satisfy each of the three competencies (some KSA courses may satisfy more than one competency).
DRGN 1000: Red Dragon Seminar (RDS)
RDS courses must meet:
the RDS learning outcomes (= introductory exposures to the 3 core competencies) &
the 9 RDS characteristics established in the Dragon Academy Implementation Report.
Students will begin to be able to:
- Identify, analyze, and evaluate ideas, data, or arguments.
- read and comprehend college-level texts.
- locate information with an awareness of authority, validity, and bias.
- discuss the historical or contemporary interdependencies between the Global North and South, such as global issues of sustainability or questions of social justice.
9 RDS Characteristics
1.Discussion-Based: RDS courses will include substantial discussion and should avoid lecture format.
2.Interdisciplinary: Involves work done across two or more disciplines.
3.Multiple lenses/perspectives: These include but are not limited to multiple normative, methodological and/or epistemic perspectives.
4.Problem-oriented and/or thematic orientation: Classes will engage problems, topics or themes of relevance to the broad concerns of students in their lives as young adults and their future lives as workers and citizens of the world.
5.Shared cohort experience: RDS courses will be capped at 20-25 students to foster the experiential goals of such courses.
6.Reflective Process: Students will be asked to reflect on course content and how it relates to everyday life as well as the larger goals of general education and liberal arts education.
7.Sets expectations for work at the college-level.
8.Introduction to skills for success in their academic career.
9.Evidence-based opinion formation.
Delivery options:
1 new or adapted course taught by an individual instructor, 3 s.h. or
1 course co-taught by faculty from different disciplines, 3 s.h. (counts as 1 course for faculty with 4/3 teaching loads)
Transfer students who have satisfied SUNY Gen Ed elsewhere are exempt from RDS.
11 Knowledge & Skills Areas:
(An Individual Course May Carry A Maximum of One K & S Area Attribute)
- Oral Communication
- Written Communication
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Social Justice
- Quantitative Reasoning
- Scientific Reasoning
- Humanities
- Social Sciences
- Arts
- US History & Civic Engagement
- World History & Global Awareness
- World Languages