Keene State believes in the value of a liberal arts education—that the best way we can prepare you for the future is to teach you to think critically and creatively, to communicate effectively, and to experience the connections between the different branches of knowledge.
Yes, you’ll develop the skills you need to be proficient in your major, but you’ll also understand how those skills are connected by studying the arts and the sciences. That way, if the specific skills you learn, or the career you’ve prepared for, become replaced by something new down the road, you’ll have the flexibility and creativity to adapt to a changing world.
Writing is not approached as an exercise, but as a way of communicating with clarity and purpose. Quantitative analysis is not done in a workbook, but as a way of understanding and solving real-world problems. Courses such as Angels and Fallen Women, Black Music Blues Nation, The Downside of Certainty, Why We Create, Measuring Fair Trade: The No-Impact Experiment, or Numbers from Wall Street inspire students to conduct research, think critically, reason quantitatively, write effectively, and imagine innovative connections across disciplinary boundaries.
Program Requirements
Every Keene State College student is required to complete a total of 40 credits within the Integrative Studies Program, including a minimum of two courses in residency at the 300 or 400 level. Foundations courses lay the groundwork for intellectual engagement at a higher level. Perspectives courses assure a broad knowledge base while allowing the student to explore areas outside of the chosen Major. Interdisciplinary courses combine scholarship from multiple disciplines in innovative ways.
The 10 Integrative Studies Program courses are distributed in this way:
Foundations:
- ITW 101: Thinking and Writing
- Quantitative Literacy Competency
Perspectives:
- One Fine and Performing Arts (IA)
- One Humanities (IH)
- One additional Fine and Performing Arts OR Humanities (IA or IH)
- One Social Science (IS)
- One Natural Science (IN)
- One additional Social OR Natural Science (IS or IN)
Interdisciplinary:
- One Interdisciplinary (II)
Elective:
- One additional IA, IH, IS, IN, or II
When looking for an ISP Perspectives course, search for the department you are interested in first. On the English page, for example, one will find IHENG 191 Readings in Literature. The first two letters indicate the course would fulfill the “Humanities” requirement. “ENG” denotes that it is offered by the English Department, and a number in the 100s means it is a beginning-level course. The English department also offers IAENG202 Creative Nonfiction Writing. This course fulfills the “Art” requirement but, as a 200-level course, requires ITW101 Thinking and Writing be completed first.
Why Integrated Thinking and Writing?
In Thinking and Writing, you’ll experience writing as a process of thinking. Our faculty design Thinking and Writing courses that challenge you to think about the questions and problems that motivate academic inquiry. You’ll learn to discover, explore, and clarify your ideas by writing about a subject in depth, over time, with consistent feedback and opportunities to revise.
Core Principles
- Students’ writing ability is largely a function of their thinking ability. Studies show that the better students are as thinkers, the better they are as writers.
- The heart of academic writing is developing and supporting a complex claim or stance. In other words, it is not enough to provide information on a topic or craft a one-sided argument—academic writing requires the student to make a commitment to a stance or position while demonstrating an awareness of multiple perspectives on the issue.
- In order to learn how to write well, you need to write about a subject in depth, over time, with consistent feedback and opportunities to revise.
Core Practices
- A focus on scholarly questions and problems: From “Forgiveness and Reconciliation” to “The Roaring Twenties” to “What is Nature?” to “History of a Week,” you’ll read books—not just textbooks—that provide an intellectual context for your writing projects.
- The opportunity to think: ou’ll generate your own topics, claims, or research questions and engage in independent research.
- Sustained research and writing: You’ll develop open-ended research questions; develop a complex claim/thesis; and gather, synthesize, question, and incorporate research gathered from multiple perspectives to support and explore your claim/thesis in a longer researched essay.
- An emphasis on collaboration: In addition to working closely with your instructor, you’ll work with the Mason Library to learn information literacy skills, such as locating and evaluating sources, and with tutors at the Center for Research and Writing to refine your writing process.
In ITW 101, you’ll discover that learning how to write for college takes time, effort, and thought. ITW begins a process that you will be prepared to continue as a developing writer and thinker in college and beyond.
Why Integrated Quantitative Literacy?
Quantitative literacy means you understand and are confident with numerical information. To be competent and effective in the real world, you’ll need to be able to question, interpret, manipulate, and analyze the numerical information you’ll encounter in all aspects of life.
The ability to question, interpret, and analyze numerical information encountered in all aspects of life (numbers in the news, taxes, debt, inflation, probability) is the hallmark of a quantitatively literate person. Completion of the quantitative literacy (QL) requirement gives you the opportunity to critically read and interpret quantitative information, and to apply quantitative methods and concepts to solve a problem or support an argument.
Students must satisfy the QL requirement within the first three semesters of matriculation. Many do so by completing IQL 101 Integrative Quantitative Literacy. However, some major programs specifically require one of the following courses, each of which can be used to satisfy the QL requirement:
- MATH 120 Applied Algebra and Trigonometry
- MATH 135 Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
- MATH 141 Introductory Statistics
- MATH 151 Calculus I
- MATH 172 Application of Number Systems
- MATH 175 Data Analysis for Teachers
- MGT 140 Quantitative Decision-Making
- PSYC 251 Psychological Statistics
If you intend to pursue a major that requires one of these courses, you should enroll in the specific course designated by that major, not IQL 101. In fact, you can fulfill the QL requirement by completing any one of these courses in place of IQL 101. Your academic advisor can help you determine the appropriate course to take.
The Perspectives area of the ISP consists of six courses in the arts, the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. The arts and sciences are at the heart of what we mean by a liberal education – an education that prepares and empowers you to engage with complexity, diversity, and change. Perspectives courses help you develop an appreciation for and knowledge of the impact of the arts and sciences in our lives. By engaging in the Perspectives experience, students gain a greater sense of how personal and social responsibility impact local, national, and global challenges. All Perspectives courses focus on helping you develop strong and transferable intellectual and practical skills that will help you apply what you know in any social or professional situation.
Perspectives Requirements
- One Fine and Performing Arts (IA)
- One Humanities (IH)
- One additional Fine and Performing Arts or Humanities (IA or IH)
- One Natural Science (IN)
- One Social Science (IS)
- One additional Natural or Social Science (IN or IS)
The Elective ISP Course requirement may be filled by a seventh Perspectives course or by a second Interdisciplinary course. All Perspectives courses taken to fulfill ISP requirements must be taken in different departments.
Courses bearing the II-prefix in the Integrative Studies Program help you understand the relationships between different branches of knowledge or academic disciplines.
You’ll choose from courses in our interdisciplinary programs—women’s & gender studies, Holocaust & genocide studies, environmental studies, criminal justice studies, or American studies—or from interdisciplinary courses offered by a member of the faculty in an academic program, as in the examples below. Interdisciplinary courses complement coursework in traditional academic fields of study by encouraging
- Thinking about how personal and cultural knowledge is constructed
- Analysis of the assumptions and actions of society from multiple perspectives
- Appreciation for artistic, philosophical, cultural, scientific, technological, economic, social, and political approaches
- Assessment of your own role and responsibilities as a member of a diverse community.
Examples of II Course Offerings
The Evolution of Mathematics: IIMATH310
This course places into context the way that mathematics developed due to economic, scientific, and cultural needs around the world. Students from a variety of disciplines, including history, art, and psychology, to name a few, bring enlightening insights to the discussion from their varied perspectives.
The Physics of Music: IIPHYS305
Examining fundamental musical concepts such as harmony from both the music and physics perspectives, students gain insight into both the aesthetic nature of harmony and its exact, idealized definitions through ratios of pitch frequencies as encountered in the naturally occurring overtone series.