Morris Core Curriculum

The First Year Experience serves as your introduction to UMN Morris and the liberal arts.

*Transfer students who have completed 12 credit hours or more of courses at a college or university after receiving their high school diplomas are exempt from the First Year Experience requirements.

Requirement descriptions

• Intellectual Community: To foster development of a liberal arts intellectual community through the introduction of intellectual and practical skills and through active student-faculty engagement in course material.
• College Pathways Morris 1101: To support students’ transition to UMN Morris through establishing strong campus connections, developing college-level academic success strategies, and implementing health and wellbeing practices in the context of undergraduate living and learning.

These requirements emphasize the development of the intellectual skills, the communication skills, and the framework for learning you will need for successful advanced work.

*If transfer students qualify for the First Year Experience exemption with 12 or more post high school matriculation credit hours that include at least four credits of writing instruction and fulfilled the writing requirement at their previous institutions, they are exempt from the WLA requirement.

Requirement descriptions

• Writing for the Liberal Arts: To learn the general conventions and process of academic writing and lay the foundation for learning conventions specific to individual disciplines.
• Writing Enriched: To develop and improve writing skills through explicit instruction, feedback, and the revision and resubmission of assignments.
• World Languages: To develop proficiency in a single language other than English at the level equivalent to the first full year of college language study.
• Quantitative/Mathematical/Symbolic Reasoning: To increase students’ capacity for and competence with formal systems, quantitative reasoning, and symbolic and logical modes of thinking.
• Artistic Process: To introduce an understanding of the creative process through individual performance, and demonstrate skill in such activities as composition, theater, dance, studio art, and music.

World Language requirement details

You must demonstrate proficiency in a single language other than English at a level equivalent to the first full year of college language study to fulfill the World Language requirement. You can do this in any of the following ways:

• Successfully complete a beginning language II course
• Successfully complete a 2xxx- or 3xxx-level language course
• Pass a proctored proficiency exam
• Achieve appropriate AP, CLEP, or IB examination scores
• Contact the Office of the Registrar if English is not your first language

Placement tests

Placement tests in selected languages are given by Morris language disciplines to determine the level of pre-college proficiency of a student with prior coursework. If you plan to study at Morris in the same language that you studied in high school, you must take the placement test and abide by the placement recommendation. If you attend the recommended course and find the level of placement is not appropriate to your proficiency in the language, you may consult your language instructor as to the proper course level of study.

Proficiency exams

If you wish to test for exemption from the World Languages general education requirement based on prior learning in French, German, or Spanish, you must pass a proctored proficiency exam. The initial online Morris placement test is not a proctored proficiency exam and does not fulfill the World Language requirement. Please contact the Hasselmo Language Teaching Center to schedule an exam. If you studied a second language other than German, French, or Spanish, you should contact the Scholastic Committee for further information.

The Morris Mission Themes and Liberal Art Perspectives categories reflect the campus’s values and mission, emphasizing interdisciplinary thinking, social responsibility, and global awareness. These requirements will guide you in achieving a well-rounded and socially conscious education while exposing you to various modes of inquiry across disciplines.

Four-credit courses may have two Morris Mission Theme designators or one Morris Mission Theme and one Liberal Arts Perspective designator. Courses with two designators will satisfy both requirements.

Morris Mission Themes

*International students should contact the Scholastic Committee for an exemption.

Morris Mission Themes descriptions

• Human Diversity and Equity: To develop students’ awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations in societies.
• Global Perspectives: To increase students' understanding of the growing interdependence of nations and peoples and develop their ability to apply a comparative perspective to cross-cultural social, economic and political experiences.
• Ethical and Civic Responsibility: To develop students' capacity to identify, discuss, and reflect upon the ethical dimensions of political, social, scientific, professional, and personal values and to understand the ways in which they can be responsible and productive community members.
• Sustainability & the Environment: To improve students' understanding of today's complex sustainability and environmental challenges. Students will explore issues related to sustainability or the environment through the humanities, sciences, and/or social sciences.

Liberal Arts Perspectives

Liberal Arts Perspectives descriptions

• Humanities: To expand students’ capacity to understand, analyze, discuss, and evaluate discourse concerning the complexity of the human condition.
• Fine Arts: To develop students’ ability to understand, analyze, and appreciate the arts.
• Social and Behavioral Sciences: To increase students’ understanding of humans as individuals, and the social systems and institutions in which they live.
• Historical Perspectives: To increase students’ understanding of the past and the complexity of economic, cultural, religious, political, and scientific affairs.
• Physical and Natural Sciences: To increase students’ understanding of the structure and dynamics of the physical and natural worlds.

The capstone experience will enable you to integrate the skills and concepts you have learned through your time at Morris. You will complete a capstone experience within your major requirements through a senior seminar, senior thesis, senior project, or completion of a senior seminar equivalent course.

The Morris Core Experience is a high-impact, real-world learning experience to complement and extend your classroom learning with enriched hands-on learning such as an internship, study abroad, research, or leadership. You will satisfy this requirement by completing one documented credit-bearing or co-curricular research or creative activity, global experience, career ready experience (e.g., employment, fieldwork, internship), leadership experience, or community engaged learning experience.