College Competencies

The College has established seven skill areas that form the foundation of the educational experience at Champlain College, regardless of the student's major. We believe that each of these skills is best developed through consistent practice, application and instruction. As a result, each faculty member is expected to design courses with these competencies in mind and incorporate instructional and developmental activities in these seven areas wherever possible and consistent with the goals of the major and/or course. The College Competencies are:

1. Critical and Creative Thinking enables students to examine an argument, problem or system, integrate all the available information about it, formulate a response, and justify their position. More formally, critical and creative thinking includes a wide range of cognitive skills and intellectual dispositions needed to interpret, analyze, and evaluate arguments, problems and systems, and then to synthesize, evaluate, and explain an appropriate response. This response may be innovative and go beyond standard conventions.
2. Written Communication competence is the ability to use reading, thinking, and writing to communicate effectively. The writer's point and purpose is easy to follow and supported by sufficient and appropriate evidence. Language and ideas are appropriately expressed for a specific audience and correctly follow the conventions of standard written English.
3. Quantitative Literacy ensures the understanding and communication of rules of number, pattern manipulation and associated terminology for everyday applications. It allows the individual to use numbers and formulate relationships between them, to analyze, interpret and develop an appropriate strategy for meeting that individual's current and future needs in employment and everyday life.
4. Ethical Reasoning refers to all deliberation that concerns what individuals and groups should do, how they ought to act, and how we should treat one another. Literally, all human action, no matter how mundane or technical, falls within the ethical sphere. Excellence in Ethical Reasoning, then, requires (1) that we are keenly aware of the ethical dimension of all human action whether the action is individual or collective, and (2) that we can present and explain compelling arguments why we should or should not act in a certain way.
5. Oral Communication competence is the ability to use oral and nonverbal messages to convey ideas, information and intentions effectively in a manner that is appropriate to the topic, situation and audience. It is the ability to use listening skills to interpret accurately and critically the oral and nonverbal messages produced by others, and to display regard for other speakers' points of view. Finally, it requires being able to select or develop a topic, research that topic, and organize and evaluate gathered information for presentational purposes.
6. Technology and Information Literacy Competency refers to the ability to recognize when technology tools are needed for a given purpose, to select and use them appropriately and responsibly, and to recognize the implications associated with their use. Information Literacy refers to the ability to recognize when information is needed, and to locate, evaluate, and effectively use this information. Information literacy is increasingly important in light of rapid technological change, proliferating information resources, and multiple media. Thus, Technology Literacy and Information Literacy are closely related and integrated competencies.
7. Global Appreciation Competency includes a set of knowledge and skills for living on a planet characterized by ever closer economic, cultural, environmental interdependency. Through it, students will come to understand and take responsibility for their own and their nation's role in global affairs.