CORE COMPETENCIES PORTFOLIO REQUIREMENT

The core competencies portfolio is a required, noncredit, general education component of each degree program. It is a graduation requirement for all students enrolling in a BCC degree program whohave not earned 15 degree credits as of September 1, 2004.

Students must keep portfolios of samples of their college work, certified by faculty as demonstrating core competencies that faculty have identified as central to learning.

Students will be completing assignments in general education, elective courses, and courses in all programs of study that will give them practice with these competencies in the context of different subjects.

Learning to use competencies across the curriculum will help students:

(1) apply similar skills and abilities to learn different course contents, and

(2) integrate their education rather than thinking of it as a collection of      separate, unrelated courses.

To satisfy this requirement, a student must demonstrate the competency in the following areas:

Group I - Pan-Disciplinary

(All four of the following are required):

1. Critical Thinking (CC-CT)

2. Written Communication* (CC-WC)

3. Oral Communication (CC-OC)

4. Technological Literacy (CC-TL)

*This competency, entailing the use of sources, must be satisfied by a sample   work from other than composition courses.

Group II (One of the following is required):

1. Scientific Knowledge and Reasoning (CC-SK)

2. Quantitative Reasoning / Logic (CC-QR)

Group III (One of the following is required):

1. Historical Awareness (CC-HA)

2. Awareness of the Arts (CC-AA)

3. Community and Global Awareness (CC-CG)

4. Human Understanding and Interaction (CC-HU)

Students, in completing assignments in general education courses, elective courses, and courses in their programs of study, will be doing work that utilizes the skills entailed in each of the competencies noted above. A description of these skills follows. The student's faculty member will identify the competencies that can best be demonstrated by the work the student will do in the course. In addition, the student may wish to talk to the faculty member about the possibility of fulfilling a different competency in an assignment.

The faculty member will notify the Registrar's Office of his or her acceptance of a student's work for the portfolio. This office will keep track of the competencies completed as part of the student's academic record. The student is responsible for keeping the portfolio materials.

No sample of work submitted for a competency may be used to satisfy more than one competency, and no more than two competencies can be satisfied through work in one course. Meeting portfolio requirements must be done and certified duing the semester the student is enrolled in the course.

The portfolio is a graduation requirement for AA and AS students beginning with the 2004 catalog year. Students who have earned 15 or more degree credits at BCC prior to Fall 2004

are exempt from the requirement, as are students who transfer in 15 or more credits.

Certificate and non-degree students are not required to complete a portfolio. They are, however, encouraged to work on a portfolio since they may later wish to apply their coursework toward a degree.

 Students required to complete a portfolio for graduation may, in extraordinary circumstances, request a substitution or waiver for part of the requirement. Such requests shoul  be addressed to the Program Advisor for Liberal Arts, Professor William Corby, who will make recommendations to the Dean of Academic Affairs.

Students should contact their academic advisor if they have questions concerning the core competency portfolio.