General Education: The Foundations Program

General Education has "deep roots" at York University and, indeed, was central to the founding vision of the university and consciously connected to what would make York distinct from other post-secondary institutions. York's founding president, Murray Ross, clearly articulated a model of both general and liberal education that would train and produce graduates not only for professional careers, but also for local and global engaged citizenship. General education was envisioned as fundamental to this latter goal, with the aim of general education to provide a breadth of study that would give students knowledge of the major disciplines.

In 1996, Faculty of Arts General Education requirements were re-organized with the introduction of 9.0 credit Foundations courses. Arts students were reguired to take two of these Foundations courses, one in Humanities and one in Social Science. A Natural Science course also remained part of the general education requirements. In part, this re-organization was instituted to ensure that students were exposed early in their academic careers to the breadth of the liberal arts. In part, Foundations courses-which feature a two hour lecure and two hour tutorial- were designed to assist in the acculturation process of transitioning form high school to university.

The Foundations program promotes these four objectives of Arts General Education:

breadth of knowledge
interdisciplinarity
critical skills
acculturation to the university project

The Department of Social Science provides 1000 and 2000- level Foundations courses through which students may fulfill their general-education requirements.

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Click here to access handouts from Humanities/Social Science TDGA " Tips and Tools for Grading " seminar

Click here to access handouts from Humanities/Social Science TDGA "Planning an Effective Tutorial" seminar

TAs who are teaching their first Foundations course will be paid for a total of seven hours of professional development at the CUPE overtime rate.

The breakdown is as follows:

2 hours of workshops during a Foundations TA-day (Sept)
2 hour meeting with the course director of your Foundations course in the afternoon of Foundations TA–day or the day scheduled
3 hours of professional development workshops, facilitated by the CST and/or Foundations Program, held during the academic year on a range of topics
Additionally, Foundations Humanities and Social Sciences will hold 3 seminars during the Fall/Winter terms. TAs may count these seminars for 1 paid hour of professional development toward the 7 hour total.

If you were unable to attend a Foundations TA Day and/or your course meeting (Course Director did not schedule a course meeting), either or both can be made up by attending additional workshops over the year to accumulate the 7 hours of professional development.

Please remember to have your participation at workshops and seminars recorded by signing the Foundations workshop participation sheet.

TAs who are returning to the Foundations Program are welcome to attend all sessions, but will be paid only for 2 hours of course meeting.

Teaching Development Graduate Assistant Corner

The TDGA Corner includes material that our TDGAs Lee Kuhnle (lckuhnle@yorku.ca) and Carolina Crewe (ccrewe@yorku.ca) have found both helpful and motivating in their teaching and learning experiences.