Everything you need to speak confidently with faculty: the research grounding this project, a growing shared literature review, and the accreditation standards that frame general education at SCAD.
We plan to implement changes to the general education requirements of all undergraduate programs beginning Spring 2028, continuing through Fall 2028. This is a monumental moment in SCAD's curriculum history — it will affect every undergraduate student at SCAD, and that's exactly why we want engagement from all corners of the university throughout the process.
We are still in the research phase of the project, initiated and facilitated by the Office of Curriculum and Assessment. We're gathering both primary data — surveys, interviews, focus groups — and secondary data, so that any future changes are grounded in evidence rather than assumption.
As the research continues, we'll be asking for further participation from faculty, and eventually students. Watch this site — especially the Discussion channels — for opportunities to weigh in.
We'll be building new courses and content based on all of the data collected from stakeholders during the research phase — which is exactly why participation now matters so much. What we hear from you directly shapes what gets built.
Following the research and building phases, updated general education requirements roll out for all undergraduate programs, beginning Spring 2028 and continuing through Fall 2028.
Employers, alumni, academic leaders, and faculty are surveyed in phases — starting with academic leaders — using a shared competency-priorities module so responses can be compared directly across groups.
Built on the validated Wang & Wang (2019) AI Anxiety Scale, this optional module lets the study measure AI-related fear alongside openness to curriculum change — without forcing every respondent through it.
Critical Thinking, Adaptability & Flexibility, Collaboration & Teamwork, Verbal Communication, Curiosity, and Leadership & Professionalism — selected because they held up both as independently "important" ratings and as forced top-5 choices across employer, alumni, academic leader, and faculty groups.
Findings are triangulated against established datasets — RNL Student Satisfaction Inventory, NSSE, the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey, and QS global employer data — so SCAD's results can be read in context, not in isolation.
The Summer 2026 Curriculum Council presentation of the General Education Renaissance quantitative study insights, plus two versions of the underlying research: a discussion-ready briefing for Curriculum Council, and the full comprehensive results for anyone who wants to go deeper.
A decision-focused summary: where stakeholders converge, the confidence and openness gaps to watch, and discussion questions for Council.
Complete results across Academic Leaders, Alumni, Employers, and Faculty, including each group's AI section and open-ended response themes.
Now that you've seen where the six competencies came from — the Research Insights above and the full decks you can download — here's a short activity to run with your own faculty so their voices become part of that same evidence base. We're asking deans and department chairs to run it at a First Friday meeting, then send us what your group comes up with. We used posters and sticky notes when we ran this at Curriculum Council, but use whatever your team already reaches for: a whiteboard, Miro, Figma, index cards, anything that lets a group capture words and move them around. The activity covers all six competencies: Critical Thinking, Adaptability & Flexibility, Collaboration & Teamwork, Verbal Communication, Curiosity, and Leadership & Professionalism — roughly 45 minutes total.
Start together, as a full group. Critical Thinking is the one competency everyone already converges on, so define it as one room before splitting up — it sets the tone for how the smaller tables should work.
How to lead it: set up one shared IS / IS NOT space where everyone can see it. Ask the room to call out words and phrases for each column as you (or a volunteer) capture them — no need to go around one at a time. Collect words for about 6–7 minutes, then open the floor for a couple of people to propose a one- or two-sentence definition using what you've captured, and talk it through as a group. Land on a version most people can nod to. That's the definition for Critical Thinking — then move to tables.
Assign each table one of the five remaining competencies: Adaptability & Flexibility, Collaboration & Teamwork, Verbal Communication, Curiosity, and Leadership & Professionalism. Give each table a way to capture two columns: IS and IS NOT.
How to lead it: hand out whatever your group is using — sticky notes and a two-column board, a shared doc, a Miro or Figma frame — split into IS and IS NOT. Have people write individually first, then add to the shared columns, so quieter voices end up represented too. Give a two-minute warning before time's up, and at time, hands off — no more editing. The table's output gets handed to a new group next.
Everyone moves to a new table and inherits the words a different table wrote — for a different skill than the one they just worked on.
How to lead it: call time clearly and give a simple instruction: leave what you made behind, move to the next table over. If you're working digitally, share the link or file instead of physically moving anything. Don't let the outgoing table explain or defend what they wrote — the new table works from the words alone.
The new table's job is to take the words and phrases they inherited and arrange them into a one- or two-sentence definition of that skill.
How to lead it: have someone read every inherited word or phrase aloud first, before anyone starts drafting. Push the table to use as many of the inherited words as genuinely fit, rather than starting over from scratch. Appoint one person as scribe and one as the reporter for Step 5.
Each table gives a quick 30-second read of the definition they landed on, for all five rotated skills.
How to lead it: go table by table. Have the reporter read the final definition straight through — no summarizing or critiquing yet. Have one person (you, or a designated notetaker) capture each definition as it's read, so nothing has to be reconstructed afterward.
We're also asking instructors to have their own students define the six competencies — Critical Thinking, Adaptability & Flexibility, Collaboration & Teamwork, Verbal Communication, Curiosity, and Leadership & Professionalism — in whatever way fits your course. Get creative with it: a discussion, a design exercise, a written reflection, a critique format, anything that gets students articulating what these skills actually mean to them.
If you'd rather not build something from scratch, we put together a ready-to-run example that fits inside 15–20 minutes of class time.
SCAD's general education curriculum operates within SACSCOC's Principles of Accreditation. These are the primary standards and guidance documents referenced by this project.
The full current standards, including Core Requirement 9.3 on general education components of undergraduate degree programs.
Companion guidance interpreting each standard, including how institutions should demonstrate compliance for general education requirements.
SACSCOC's specific interpretive guidance on the general education core requirement.
The main SACSCOC standards page, with links to the current and past editions of the Principles of Accreditation.
A living, crowd-built bibliography. Add a resource by title, ISBN, or link — no need to fill in everything.
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