Fundamentals

IAU is for students who want to understand—and influence— how the world works. IAU’s academically rigorous curriculum enables students to combine serious theoretical study with meaningful real-world learning experiences. Whatever major students choose, they acquire a solid foundation and pursue in-depth study in their chosen fields.

Student Learning Objectives

Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) are the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes that students are expected to develop as a result of their overall experiences with any aspect of the university, including courses, programs, and student services. SLOs are designed to help guide individual departments and disciplines in the development of learning outcomes for programs and courses and services, and to help shape the decision making processes of IAU.

SLOs are the collective expression of the learning environment at IAU. Each program must contribute to at least one SLO. The following are rules of thumb when establishing or connecting PLOs to SLOs:

  • Each program does NOT need to fulfill every SLO.
  • Each course within a program does NOT need to fulfill every program learning objective (PLO).
  • A course should meet all of its stated learning objectives.

Upon Successful Completion Students Will be Able to Demonstrate:

SLO1

Written Communication

Written communication is the development and expression of ideas in writing. Written communication involves learning to work in many genres and styles. It can involve working with many different writing technologies, and mixing texts, data, and images. Written communication abilities develop through iterative experiences across the curriculum (AAC&U).

SLO2

Oral Communication

Oral communication is a prepared, purposeful presentation designed to increase knowledge, to foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners’ attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors (AAC&U).

SLO3

Critical Thinking

A habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion (AAC&U).

SLO4

Ethics

Christian ethics is reasoning about right and wrong human conduct. It requires students to be able to assess their own Christian ethical values and the social context of problems, recognize ethical issues in a variety of settings, think about how different ethical perspectives might be applied to ethical dilemmas, and consider the ramifications of alternative actions. Students’ Christian ethical self-identities evolve as they practice ethical decision-making skills and learn how to describe and analyze positions on ethical issues (AAC&U).

SLO5

Information Literacy

The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand (AAC&U).