Academic Goals

The University seeks to foster the intellectual, personal, cultural, and social development of each student. It strives to provide distinguished instruction in a democratic atmosphere, bringing individual students into close contact with faculty whose scholarly attainments and concern for teaching are able to instill a love of learning.

The baccalaureate degree at UW-Eau Claire provides students with the knowledge and abilities needed for lifelong learning. In designing the degree, the faculty expects that graduates will have achieved the following goals:

• Knowledge Goal: Build knowledge and awareness of diverse peoples and cultures and of the natural and physical world through the study of arts, histories, humanities, languages, mathematics, sciences and technologies, and social sciences.
• Skills Goal: Develop intellectual and practical skills, including, for example, inquiry and analysis, critical and creative thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative literacy, information literacy, and teamwork and problem solving.
• Responsibility Goal: Apply personal and social responsibility for active citizenship and develop skills needed to thrive in a pluralistic and globally interdependent world.
• Integration Goal: Integrate learning across courses and disciplines, and between campus and community life.
• Service Learning Goal: Students will serve their community by applying skills and knowledge gained through university coursework and/or experiences.

The Liberal Education Core, which forms part of all baccalaureate degree curricula, contributes to the breadth of each student’s education through its emphasis on the cultural heritage of a free and responsible citizenry and on the development of creative imagination, critical judgment, and skill in the interchange of ideas. Students are afforded opportunities to collaborate with faculty on research and other scholarly and creative projects. UW-Eau Claire is recognized as a Center of Excellence for Faculty and Undergraduate Student Research Collaboration.

Upon this foundation, the University builds its programs in liberal arts and sciences and in professionally-oriented fields. In keeping with the goals of the baccalaureate degree, each program is designed to impart the specialized knowledge and competencies appropriate to the particular degree, while providing also for a broad overview of the entire area and an appreciation of its relationship to other fields of learning.

University Assessment

To assure that UW-Eau Claire’s programs are strong and that students in them are attaining appropriate levels of knowledge, skills, beliefs and attitudes, the faculty and staff at UW-Eau Claire have developed an ongoing process to assess the learning and academic achievement of students in academic and co-curricular programs.  This process allows faculty and staff to carefully articulate program outcomes and to focus classroom and co-curricular experiences and assignments on preparing students to achieve those outcomes.  An assessment plan is developed to measure progress toward the student learning outcomes, data are collected, and annual reports are developed and discussed by department faculty, chairs, and deans.  Action plans are then designed to drive program improvement.

Students, alumni, and employers may be asked to participate in a wide range of assessment activities designed to provide useful information about the effectiveness of academic and co-curricular programs.  From time to time during their courses of study, students may be asked to demonstrate the breadth and depth of their knowledge, skills, beliefs and attitudes in the areas related to the outcomes of their degree programs.  All of our assessment efforts combine to improve student learning and program quality and form the basis of our culture of continuous improvement in support of UW-Eau Claire’s commitment to excellence.

The School Year

Each regular academic semester (Fall and Spring) consists of approximately 15 weeks, including days reserved for registration and final examinations.

The Summer Session is offered in two periods. Students may enroll for courses during a three-week period in late May and early June, during which three credits may be taken. Offerings include regular courses adapted to an intensive presentation as well as specially designed courses and study trips. An eight-week period is scheduled in June, July, and August. Although many courses run for the full eight weeks, others are scheduled in shorter blocks of time (two, four, or six weeks) for the convenience of summer students. Offerings include regular courses and special workshops or institutes at undergraduate and graduate levels.

The Winterim Session is offered during a period between the fall and spring semesters. Offerings primarily include regular courses and may include travel seminars and field experiences.

With the exception of certain professional programs, curricula for baccalaureate degrees are designed to be completed by full-time students in eight regular semesters. Many students attend summer sessions in order to graduate earlier or take advantage of special offerings. Others, especially teachers in the area, find in the Summer Session an opportunity to strengthen professional competencies and to work toward graduate degrees.

The Calendar in this catalog is supplemented by more detailed calendars, including official academic deadlines, registration dates, etc., which are available on the Registrar's webpage.