The Common Curriculum provides academic breadth with a set of intellectually rigorous and challenging courses that foster skills and attributes associated with leadership and global citizenship. A leader and global citizen needs to be able to communicate with and cultivate compassion with those outside their own majors, disciplines, professions, communities, and cultures and to make connections between their own livelihoods and expertise and the experiences and knowledge of others. The purpose of the Common Curriculum is to ensure that all University of Connecticut undergraduate students are literate in different ways of knowing and many kinds of knowledge beyond career preparation, and they enter society and their professions with a strong sense of moral, ethical, and social responsibility. Ideally, the Common Curriculum does not stand alone but instead provides a foundation for future learning of students in their majors and future careers. It is vital to the University’s mission that a balance between professional and general education be established and maintained in which each is complementary to and compatible with the other.

The Common Curriculum for Leadership and Global Citizenship envisions a transformative educational experience that empowers students to become compassionate, innovative leaders with a profound understanding of global issues, a commitment to social responsibility, and the capacity to drive positive change in an interconnected world. To this end, the following Program Learning Objectives (PLOs) have been established.

After completing the Common Curriculum, students will be able to:

• PLO1: Demonstrate versatility and adaptability in a rapidly changing world.
• PLO2: Integrate knowledge in innovative or creative ways.
• PLO3: Apply learning strategies to new contexts.
• PLO4: Collaborate to address challenges on both a local and global scale.
• PLO5: Recognize human differences and the ways in which those differences can enhance our lives.
• PLO6: Express quantitative and qualitative ideas effectively in written, visual, aural, and/or oral forms.
• PLO7: Interpret, solve, and/or model problems.