University Seminar

University Seminar is SOU’s first-year course that anchors University Studies (our general education curriculum) and your student’s academic career. University Seminar enables students to develop analytic, communication, quantitative, and information skills while introducing students to the expectations of university study. The three-term, topic-based seminars engage your student as an active learner and help students form a strong bond with peers while they talk, write, and think about challenging concepts and ideas.

The purpose of SOU's University Seminar is to instruct, challenge, and care for first-year students in developing basic academic skills while introducing them to the expectations and options of the University. In addition to welcoming and orienting students, University Seminar seeks to improve their skills, confidence, and long-term success by focusing on critical thinking, writing, and speaking; on building community; and on engaging with SOU's institutional, intellectual, and social culture. This three-term general education sequence focuses on the following program goals:

• Reading challenging texts
• Writing and speaking as ways to discover and convey meaning
• Thinking critically, especially developing and supporting claims
• Finding and evaluating information in print and electronic forms
• Developing oral and written presentations that are thoughtful, fluent, organized, coherent, and clear, with emphasis on audience, purpose, and context
• Recognizing revision and practice as necessary parts of the writing and speaking processes
• Knowing one's strengths and learning productive self-assessment
• Maintaining a learning and supportive community
• Claiming one's education with attitudes toward learning that promote success
• Participating in the intellectual community of Southern Oregon University

University Seminar is required for entering students who do not have the equivalent of WR 121 and 122. Although sections have different topics, all students work toward SOU’s general education Foundational strands of Communication, Critical Thinking, and Information Literacy.

Faculty have designed the three-term course around readings and activities that explore a focused subject or issue, but all students build the required academic skills through similar structured sequences of experiences. Students engage with a chosen topic and progress beyond unsupported assertions to reasoned argumentation and dialogue. The instructor will also serve as a first-year faculty advisor, ensuring frequent and informative communication between faculty and students.

Successful completion of the three terms earns 12 credits: 8 in writing and 4 in communication. In comparing the University Seminar experience with traditional communication and writing courses, the following guideline might be useful: successful completion of each USEM term (101, 102, 103) with a C- or better is equivalent to 3 credits of introductory writing and 1 credit of communication. Only after completing the whole sequence do students receive all 12 credits in writing and communication.