Competencies

Competencies are outcomes that Seaver College wishes to ensure for all graduates. Upon graduation from Seaver College, all students must be proficient in the following areas: cultural competence, presentation skills, writing, and research methods. Students will work toward mastering these fundamental skills and principles introduced in the Core program through the Junior Writing Portfolio and in courses that offer a special emphasis on writing and presentation skills, research methods, and cultural competence. Courses that fulfill these competency requirements may be part of the Seaver Core curriculum or a part of a student’s major or minor.

Requirements

Cultural Competence

This requirement draws upon the Christian tradition of engaging difference and sharing within and across cultures. Developing competence in this kind of engagement with people from different cultural backgrounds is integral to academic, professional, and life success. Thus, students will engage deeply with a culture other than their own as a faith-centered process that facilitates the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and perspectives in order to recognize, value, and effectively respond to individuals, groups, cultures, and systems of difference. To acquire a CC designation, courses must demonstrate pedagogical adaptations, supports, and/or curricula that rely on cultural knowledge from historically marginalized sources and effectively manage dynamics of difference.

In developing cultural competence, students will:

learn to value diversity and similarities among all peoples
develop skills in order to effectively respond to cultural differences
assess their own sociocultural identity and role in broader social and cultural systems
adapt to cultural contexts of communities they serve
understand how to use cultural competence to inform institutional and community efforts that address social inequality

Courses fulfilling the cultural competence (CC) engagement requirement include:

BA 354, BA 366, BA 498, COM 313, COM 410, COM 412, COM 413, COM 485, EDUC 465, ENG 301, ENG 340, ENG 370, ENG 440, ENG 475, FILM 321, FRE 345, FRE 366, FRE 430, FRE 470, GSHU 333, HIST 326, HIST 335, HIST 336, HIST 405, HIST 420, HIST 422, HIST 424, HIST 425, HIST 428, HIST 433, HIST 450, HIST 530, INTS 250, INTS 459, NPM 300, NPM 301, NPM 302, NPM 330, NUTR 210, NUTR 212, NUTR 370, NUTR 440, NUTR 460, POSC 435, POSC 437, POSC 455, PSYC 458, REL 300C, REL 544, SART 202, SAAJ 100, SOC 200, SOC 421, SOC 422, SOC 431, SOC 436, SOC 444, SOC 450, SOC 452, SOC 455, SOC 458, SOC 462, SOC 497, SPAN 348, SPAN 430, SPAN 461, SPAN 470, THEA 313.

Junior Writing Portfolio

The Junior Writing Portfolio (JWP) demonstrates students’ writing competency across the curriculum. Students must submit a portfolio of four papers for evaluation by the JWP Committee, which is composed of faculty members from across the disciplines.

In the JWP requirement, students will:

choose papers they have written that demonstrate their writing competency across the curriculum
articulate and reflect on their writing process and their writing strengths and weaknesses

More detailed information about the portfolio requirements can be found on the JWP website at: seaver.pepperdine.edu/academics/ge/jwp.
When students have acquired junior status, they will be automatically enrolled in JWP 301 and notified via their Pepperdine email accounts at the start of the semester. Students receiving NC should contact the JWP director to arrange for writing support to prepare a successful portfolio.

Presentation Skills/Research Method

This requirement builds discipline-specific materials, methods, and critically evaluative skills necessary for effective research and presentation of research in the major. This requirement will be fulfilled through presentation skills/research methods skills courses in the student’s major discipline.

Each major has designated courses that fulfill the presentation skills/research methods requirement: For the various PS, RM major requirement listings, please refer to the Academic Programs section of the Seaver Academic Catalog.

In the presentation skills/research methods requirement, students will:

Acquire and demonstrate both introductory and advanced methods of research and discovery used in a particular academic discipline
use research language effectively
develop extensive methods and procedures for conducting and recording effective research in different formats and settings
identify, synthesize, and assess research literature
plan, structure, and write a research paper
present research findings both formally and dynamically to an academic audience

Writing Intensive

This requirement is designed to develop discipline-specific ways of writing important for continuing study in the major, for careers, and for communication of discipline-specific knowledge to general audiences. This requirement will be fulfilled through writing-intensive courses in the student’s major discipline.

Courses that fulfill the writing-intensive course requirement: Each major has designated writing-intensive courses. Please refer to major requirement listings located in the Academic Programs section of the Seaver Academic Catalog.

In the writing-intensive course requirement, students will:

use writing to improve learning of subject matter and promote the development of critical thinking
learn discipline-specific ways of thinking and communicating, including writing skills important for continuing study in the discipline, for careers, and for communicating discipline-specific knowledge to audiences outside the discipline
improve writing processes, developing effective strategies for generating ideas, gathering information, drafting, revising, and editing