and graduation rates," since it focuses on both general education skills and on career readiness, the latter of which is referenced in goal 2.e.:

2.e Link every academic program to occupation outlook data and review curricula to ensure programs are supporting career readiness. Utilize outside advisory committees to assist in evaluating curricula especially courses that are targeted to include internships, and research and employment opportunities.

Faculty professional development, as part of the process of shifting pedagogy and making Design Thinking a cornerstone of the curriculum, also fits goal 2.m: "Develop a plan to enhance faculty professional development opportunities with a focus on developing teaching skills and engaging students through high-impact teaching and learning strategies."

As described below, the University has created a new three-course sequence to serve as a “launch pad” and “proving ground” for integrating teaching of Design Thinking throughout the curriculum. The nature of these classes fit goal 2.s of the Strategic Plan: “Develop processes to bolster the University’s General Education Core in order to foster cross-disciplinary, experiential, and inquiry-based learning.” In creating a project-based, general education capstone as a culmination of this new three-course “launch pad” sequence for the Design Thinking approach, this segment would fulfill another key aspect of one of the institutional priorities contained in the University’s Strategic Plan:

2.ee Form a group of faculty and research supervisors in charge of capstone courses to develop multidisciplinary, cross functional projects. Teams of seniors from across disciplines will form the Capstone Project teams. Team members with different interests and skills will contribute to various aspects of the project such as business aspects, environmental impact, community impact, aesthetic aspects, technical requirements, and the like.

As a mid-sized university with teaching as its core mission, Kentucky State University is well poised to undertake this kind of fresh approach. As noted in its Mission Statement, the University seeks to enable "productive lives" that contribute even beyond local or regional interests to the "diverse global economy":

Kentucky State University is a public, comprehensive, historically black land-grant university committed to advancing the Commonwealth of Kentucky, enhancing society, and impacting individuals by providing quality teaching with a foundation in liberal studies, scholarly research, and public service to enable productive lives within the diverse global economy.

Kentucky State University is also currently reviewing its Liberal Studies Core in order to make it more effective and to reduce the number of credit hours required to 33-36 so that students have more room in their schedules for classes in their majors and can keep on track to graduate in four years. In order to avoid working at cross purposes, the new courses in Humanics will replace the current required sequence in Integrative Studies with classes in Humanics, described below, rather than on adding required classes to the Core. The new courses will introduce the core concept of Design Thinking and show them traditions in intellectual history, allowing them to trace the ideas of progress, change, innovation, through multiple cultural and social lens, and then applying what they have learned in solving community-based problems.

As indicated in the University's Mission Statement, one of the institutional priorities of Kentucky State University is education in the Liberal Studies. This broad approach to learning allows students to be exposed at multiple levels to essential communication skills, quantitative competencies, and critical thinking methodologies associated with the production of artistic works, innovations in science, computational reasoning, and trends and transformations in intellectual and social history. As a result of this liberal studies aspect of the mission, our General Education sequence focuses on the Liberal