Designing an Ethics Course
CoreFSU Ethics courses help students become ethically engaged citizens and logical thinkers.
- Evaluate various ethical positions.
- Describe the ways in which historical, social, or cultural contexts shape ethical perspectives.
The course submission must reflect the following information:
Ethics courses help students become ethically engaged citizens and logical thinkers. The course objectives, course materials, activities, and grading criteria should reflect how students will achieve this outcome.
Faculty should document the following in the course syllabus or by attaching an appendix to the syllabus:
- A sample reading list with an accompanying description of how the topics and readings include substantive coverage of ethical theory.
- A sample assignment or two (and associated grading criteria) that illustrates how students will be assessed on their achievement of the student learning objectives.
Credit hours:
- General Education courses should not be less than 3 credit hours. (This does not include 1-credit labs.)
- Variable credit hour courses should have a clear justification (ex: internship, seminar with rotating topics).
Note: General Education courses must be offered at a level of 1000, 2000, or 3000. Only college-level courses (1000 or higher) are approved for the CoreFSU curriculum.
There are two components of required syllabus language:
- Statements approved by the Faculty Senate, and
- Statements for each CoreFSU designation the course is certified for
Faculty Senate required syllabus language:
All syllabi are required to include the syllabus language statements approved by the FSU Faculty Senate, available at https://facsenate.fsu.edu/Curriculum-Resources/syllabus-language.
CoreFSU required syllabus language:
The following statement can either be 1) adapted specifically to the course content, or 2) pasted verbatim into the syllabus. In either case, the meaning of the language should be clearly communicated to students.
This course has been approved to meet FSU’s CoreFSU Ethics requirement and helps you become an ethically engaged citizen and a logical thinker.
By the end of this course, students will:
- Evaluate various ethical positions.
- Describe the ways in which historical, social, or cultural contexts shape ethical perspectives.
- Ethics can be combined with any of the University Wide Graduation Requirements except for Formative Experience.
- If you choose to add a writing designation to your course proposal, note that a course can only fulfill one type of Writing requirement.
- A course may be E-Series/State-Mandated Writing “W” or Upper-Division Writing.
- If you are considering a capstone experience for your course proposal, note that a course can carry either the Scholarship in Practice (SIP) or Formative Experience designation, but not both.
- If you choose to add a writing designation to your course proposal, note that a course can only fulfill one type of Writing requirement.
Yes. While there is no strictly required format for syllabi, our office has created the following document that you may use to facilitate the process of creating a CoreFSU syllabus: Syllabus Guide - Ethics
- Faculty may contact Kestrel Strickland with any questions about CoreFSU course design, as well as questions about using the Curricular Request Application (CRA) to submit curricular requests for CoreFSU approval.
- You may also browse the FAQ for commonly asked questions and answers.