Humanics Courses: Descriptions, Outcomes and Assessment HUM 101: Pre-Industrialism, Creativity, and Formative Mindsets. This class will take a “how we got to now” approach, following the work of writers/hosts like James Burke and Stephen Johnson, in making connections between innovations that worked in concert or built on each other to result in the foundation of our contemporary industrialized, technology-driven, “westernized” culture that even cultures that developed apart from Western influence now resemble (including the world’s two most populous non-western nations: China and India). This course would examine design and systems thinking as they were used in the past to create the pre-technological world that ultimately created contemporary culture. Topics such as inventions, mathematical and scientific reasoning, artistic products, forms of literacy and developing worldviews would be discussed. Skills incorporated would be conversations, networking, and practicing thought experiments. HUM 201: Critical Thinking, Cultural Agility and the Technological World. This class will focus on how the world went from the pre-technological world to the technology-dominated world of the 21st Century. This course would examine design and systems thinking in the technological and post-technological world. Entrepreneurship, teamwork, macro and micro-level reasoning and creative problem-solving strategies will be evaluated within a global context. HUM 301: Capstone. In addition to integrating the learning from the previous classes in the sequence, leadership will be a core skill. This will be a project-based class that will synthesize prior learning in HUM 101 and 102 to create new knowledge. The capstone course will group students to work on specific social problems. Ideally the teams will be comprised of students with different know-how, many of whom will have already taken classes in their majors/prospective majors by the time they take HUM 301, ideally in the spring of their sophomore year. For example, a group may have a student with a science background, a student with a grounding in the Humanities, a student majoring in business, and so on. This will create a multidisciplinary atmosphere that will encourage each student to step forward and share his or her skills for the benefit of the group and the benefit of the community or business associated with the problem. Initially, the pilot classes for this new sequence will be cross-listed with and serve as course substitutions for the existing IGS classes for students who are under the “old core.” Students will be required to take the classes in sequence, ideally finishing the sequence by the end of the sophomore year, although some students may take longer to complete the sequence. The sequence begins with ENG 101 and a Math class in fall of the freshman year, HUM 101 in the spring of freshman year, HUM 201 in the fall of sophomore year and HUM 301, the new capstone class, in spring of sophomore year. The University College’s new orientation courses (KSU 101, KSU 102) will be used to lay the groundwork for the capstone class by introducing first year students to the concept of Design Thinking as well as working on the skills that will make the capstone course a success (team work, problem solving, etc.). Students will begin to compile an e-portfolio of their writing in these classes as well as in their required ENG 101, 102 (Freshman Composition) classes so that artifacts can be added to the e-portfolios for the two capstone classes (HUM 301 and the capstone for their majors) to assess their progress as writers and thinkers. Students can begin thinking early on about problems they see around the University, in Frankfort, or in communities from which they come, that would benefit from further consideration. They will be encouraged to share these ideas with the QEP Director. As the program develops, the University might consider facilitating some team projects with a study away component where students use Spring Break to travel to sites outside of Frankfort for specific projects. This