UMBC’s General Education Program:
UMBC General Education Functional Competencies
General Education Program (GEP) Course Review Guidelines
General Education Program (GEP) Distribution Requirements
Public Statement on UMBC’s General Education Program (GEP)
UMBC’s general education requirements vary depending upon when students began or resumed higher education as follows:
General Distribution Requirements (GDR’s): Prior to summer 1989
General Education Requirements (GER’s): summer 1989 to spring 1996
General Foundation Requirements (GFR’s): summer 1996 to spring 2007
To carry General Education credit a course must be submitted to, and approved by, the General Education Committee (GEC).
Submit a course
- Log into myUMBC
- Go to Topics
- Select Teaching and Learning
- Under faculty options, click GEP Review
- Locate your course on the list
- Click Edit
- Complete the form provided and submit
Adding New Courses
If the course is new, i.e., was not in the current catalog, it will not appear on this list. To begin the process of approval for such a course, e-mail Richard Sponaugle, Chair of GEC, or Jill Randles, Writing Board, for assistance. You will need to provide the course number, title, catalog description, number of credits, and any pre or co-requisite courses.
Additional Policies Concerning the General Education Program Requirements:
- All courses used to satisfy the general education program requirements must be completed with a “C” or better. Courses taken on a pass/fail basis may not be used toward general education program requirements.
- Within the general education program requirements, no one course may be used to satisfy more than one area. Therefore if a course has been approved as “AH” or “C” it may be used to satisfy either one, but not both, of these areas.
- A cross-listed course may be considered as any one of its assigned disciplines, no matter under which departmental designation the course is taken.
- No more than two courses from the same discipline maybe used to satisfy either the arts/humanities or social science areas. No more than three courses from the same discipline may be used throughout the general education program requirements, except that three English courses may be used in addition to English composition.
- Credit earned through AP, IB and CLEP may be used toward general education program requirements when equivalent to a UMBC general education program requirement course. UMBC Administered Departmental Exams are not applicable toward general education program requirements.
- Only one First-Year Seminar (FYS) course can be used throughout the general education program. The course must have an approved general education program designation and it can only be utilized in the designated category.
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