On Friday, December 1st, the Council on General Education approved a change in the Common Curriculum Critical Reasoning fulfillment requirement effective Spring 2024.
Since the establishment of the Common Curriculum in Fall 2020, the Critical Reasoning Foundation component required undergraduate students to (1) achieve a C- or better and (2) not drop or withdraw from a CR course. Effective Spring 2024, students can now drop or withdraw from a CR-tagged course.
This change was warranted due to the recently announced changes to the Critical Reasoning rubric and the efforts to develop courses outside of the Writing and Reasoning Program (WRTR). Beginning in Spring 2024, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs (CCPA) and Journalism (JOUR) will offer CR-tagged courses.
The Office of General Education will coordinate updates to impacted course descriptions, syllabi language, and websites with academic departments before winter break. This recent approval will be reflected in the Undergraduate Catalog for the 2024 – 2025 academic year.
Student progress through the Common Curriculum Foundation components will be monitored and enforced via the University-wide Requirements for Academic Progress articulated in the Undergraduate Catalog.
The fulfillment requirements of a C- letter grade and the inability to drop and withdraw remain in effect for the Academic Writing Foundation component.
Please direct questions to the Office of General Education at theccmail@smu.edu.