Critical Reading - Students will learn strategies in the following areas: evaluation, analysis, identification of patterns, breaking down arguments into elemental parts, and reflecting on potential responses. These strategies will facilitate the questioning of assumptions, exploring of perspectives, and acknowledgment of complexity. Students will explore different ways of understanding and through this process formulate political and social identities.
Critical Thinking - Students will learn to engage with new ideas and explore complex, real-world problems. Skills cultivated will include the ability to conceptualize information, integrate outside opinions, draw inferences, synthesize positions, and generate tenable solutions.
Critical Writing - Students will show the ability to critically analyze primary and secondary sources and demonstrate this ability by writing scholarly arguments, summaries, bibliographic reviews, and research papers. Writings will show consideration of point of view, bias, and perspective in the things we read. Students will also show knowledge of scholarly documentation style used within the profession and understand, and that proper documentation is essential and does not plagiarize the writing or ideas of others.
Oral Presentation Skills - Students will transmit their own critical work verbally with clarity, accuracy, and conviction. The thesis statement, surrounded by the arguments and evidence that develop it, is the focal point of the oral presentation. The presentation itself should: be clearly outlined and follow a logical progression; provide necessary context for understanding the topic at hand; provide thoughtful conclusion linked to the thesis of the paper; stay within assigned time limits; and, be free from distracting gestures and vocalized pauses.
Engagement with Diversity - Students will become familiar with and sensitive to issues of diversity through the study of historical events, political debates, and sociological models that illustrate how and why issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender have divided and united people. Students will evidence respect for and appreciation of all humans, regardless of color, creed, culture, socio-economic status, and country of origin.
Disciplinary Proficiency - Throughout their history coursework at La Sierra University, students will develop disciplinary proficiency and will show culmination of all history learning objectives in their writing and through the oral presentation of their senior thesis project. In the required thesis project (20-25 pages in length), students will apply the skills they have acquired in previous courses and assignments to a research project of their choice. Students will show that they can make logical and well-reasoned arguments with contextual knowledge of historical issues and professional standards, acknowledge other perspectives, evaluate evidence, write with clarity, document with accuracy, and demonstrate that they can use sources ethically.
Research Methodology - History students will show their grasp of historical research methodologies by writing a research paper documented in the Turabian format. This research will consist of either original research or a historiographical study. In the research paper, attention will be given to consulting a range of sources, both primary and secondary, and accounting for bias and strengths and weaknesses of sources. In the historiographical paper, attention will be given to identifying the scholarly conversation that surrounds a particular topic. In both types of papers, making a strong argument, conveyed with clarity and accuracy, and supported by historical evidence is essential. Students must provide proper documentation for their sources and never plagiarize the writing or ideas of others.
Religious/Moral/Ethical Values - Students will develop an awareness of and engagement with the important religious, moral, and ethical issues of the past and those of contemporary concern, including but not limited to values promoted and debated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, American political, civic and religious society, and global issues that interact with or diverge from local, regional, and national debates. Students will cultivate their own personal system of religious, moral, and ethical values, utilizing the academic, social, and spiritual values learned from their university experience.
Extra-Curricular Civic Breadth - Students will be encouraged to participate in extracurricular activities that may not have specific academic objectives but which contribute to the student’s personal, spiritual, and professional growth. Such activities may include, but are not limited to the following endeavors: serving as a student missionary, NGO volunteer or similar involvement with a service-oriented organization having national or global outreach objectives; serving as a volunteer in a local civic or church-related organization designed to improve local communities and/or foster better community relations; participating in campus organizations, clubs, and outreach programs; and, participating in political campaigns, ballot initiatives, and related civic endeavors that advance democratic objectives.
External Academic Enrichment - Students will be encouraged to participate in extra-academic activities outside of their regular classroom experience, including but not limited to the following endeavors: attending university-provided lectures or film series; attending discipline-related conferences; presenting papers at outside conferences and similar forums; collaborating in join research efforts; participating in internship and externship opportunities; and, participating in on-campus and off-campus debate societies.
Sociology Learning Objectives:
Critical Reading - Students will learn strategies in the following areas: evaluation, analysis, identification of patterns, breaking down arguments into elemental parts, and reflecting on potential responses. These strategies will facilitate the questioning of assumptions, exploring of perspectives, and acknowledgment of complexity. Students will explore different ways of understanding and through this process formulate political and social identities.
Critical Thinking - Students will learn to engage with new ideas and explore complex, real-world problems. Skills cultivated will include the ability to conceptualize information, integrate outside opinions, draw inferences, synthesize positions, and generate tenable solutions.
Critical Writing - Students will show the ability to critically analyze primary and secondary sources and demonstrate this ability by writing scholarly evaluations, arguments, summaries, reviews, research papers, and bibliographies. Students will understand the basic elements of critical thinking: differentiating between fact and opinion, recognizing and evaluating author bias and rhetoric, determining cause-and-effect relationships, determining the accuracy and completeness of information presented, recognizing logical fallacies and faulty reasoning, comparing and contrasting information and points of view, developing inferential skills, and making judgments and drawing logical conclusions. Students will also demonstrate a knowledge of the scholarly, documentation style used within the profession. Students will understand that proper documentation is essential and refrain from plagiarizing the writing or ideas of others at all times.
Oral Presentation Skills - Students will transmit their own critical work verbally with clarity, accuracy, and conviction. Oral presentations should provide necessary context for understanding the topic at hand and should be clearly outlined and follow a logical progression with an introduction, a body of content, and a conclusion in a summary form linked to a thesis of the paper. The thesis statement or the hypothesis, surrounded by the arguments and evidence that developed it, is the focal point of the oral presentation. The presentation is NOT read verbatim, except in the case of quotations.
Engagement with Diversity - In the profound words of poet Maya Angelou, we must believe in the “awesome wonder of diversity,” because in it “there is beauty and there is strength.” “Diversity makes for a rich tapestry [where] all the threads are equal in value no matter their color; equal in importance no matter their texture,” that “beneath the skin, beyond the differing features and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are alike.”
Students will evidence respect for and appreciation of all humans regardless of color, creed, culture, socio-economic status, and country of origin. Students will be encouraged and expected to celebrate diversity. This campus is a living laboratory of diversity being “the most diverse student body west of the Mississippi.” The student’s interaction with “the other” on campus will be monitored, evaluated, and recorded.
Subject Matter Proficiency Before graduation, during the last academic quarter attended, majors will submit to two processes to measure and judge their subject matter proficiency in Sociology: a written paper that answers questions prepared by their Sociology advisor on the basic tenants of sociology, e.g. the implication of understanding and internalizing the concept of “the sociological imagination,” the main theories of the discipline, the various methodologies sociologists use in research, society’s major institutions, inequities in modern society, and the meaning and impact of globalization; and, an interview with their advisor and another sociology faculty member, where students are engaged in demonstrating subject matter proficiency in an atmosphere of collegiality and mutual respect. At this conference, the faculty members will discuss with the student their written paper as well as review his/her portfolio collected over the course of the student’s enrollment in the program here at La Sierra University and other materials he/she may present from his/her experience in other institutions of higher learning before coming to LSU.
Research Methodology - Sociology students will show their grasp of the scientific principle and the scientific method of inquiry by writing a research paper documented in the style used within the profession. This research will consist of either qualitative or quantitative original research. In the research paper, attention will be given to consulting a range of sources, both primary and secondary, and accounting for bias, strengths, and weaknesses of sources. Students shall have knowledge of statistical tools and statistical analysis, capable of using the appropriate statistical tool, and able to read and understand graphs, tables, and other abbreviated forms of data. Whether the paper is qualitative or quantitative, students shall generate a hypothesis or hypotheses, review the literature, create a research design, collect the data, analyze it, and write a report.
Religious/Moral/Ethical Values - La Sierra University is a faith-based institution of higher education. One of the paramount objectives of the university and the department is to instill in every student the urgent necessity of building a personal system of religious, moral, and ethical values. Developing a body of knowledge and learning how to translate it into a useful career must be based on a foundation of integrity.
Character does count in every transaction of life. This goal will be assessed in observing a student’s academic honesty, disciplinary excellence, and in each one of the “six pillars of character”: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.
Extra-Curricular Civic Breadth - In recognition that higher education involves more than just academic learning, students will be encouraged to explore their civic engagement in the following areas: leadership in the campus student government association (SALSU); service in a student club, either departmental or university; singing in a choir or a chorus; playing in a musical ensemble; leading out in a university outreach program; engagement in student missions or other student services outside the university; holding office in a church; helping on recruitment trips; and, volunteering in civic organizations. These and similar extra-curricular activities serve to enrich the student in every aspect of his/her life. Therefore, the department will encourage and monitor such activities deemed as pursuits necessary for the life of a well-educated person. The department will also seek to instill in the student the importance of lifelong learning and lifelong service to the community.
External Academic Enrichment - It has been said that a university student learns more outside the classroom than inside. As part of student growth, these academic activities are, therefore, very important. Such activities might include: presenting papers at conventions; public speaking at service clubs; internships or externships; attending professional conventions; collaborative research with LSU and non-LSU personnel; and, going on cultural tours inside or outside of the United States. These activities and others similar will manifest a student’s breadth of education and will be encouraged and monitored by the department and its faculty.