Graduation Requirements

Degrees Conferred

BirminghamSouthern College confers the earned undergraduate degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Musical Arts, Bachelor of Music Education, and Bachelor of Science.

Requirements for any Bachelor's Degree

To earn any bachelor's degree offered by the College, a student must complete the following requirements:

(1) Total units: pass a minimum of 32 units or the equivalent, including two exploration terms. No more than two exploration terms may count toward graduation.

(2) General education: successfully complete the Explorations Curriculum Requirements listed in the following section of this Catalog.

(3) Major: successfully complete a concentration consisting of a minimum of eight units. For the Bachelor of Arts degree or the Bachelor of Science degree, no more than 20 units in a disciplinary or interdisciplinary major and its supporting courses (including exploration terms) may be presented toward the 32 units required for graduation.

(4) Academic areas: complete at least one course in each of four academic areas: fine and performing arts (art, art history, theatre, music), social sciences (economics, political science, psychology, sociology), natural sciences (astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics), and humanities (Asian studies, Arabic, Chinese, classics, English, French, Hebrew, history, Latin, philosophy, religion, Sanskrit, Spanish; excluding EH 102 or EH 208, and language courses at or below the intermediate level). These courses may be used to fulfill general education and major requirements.

(5) Grade point average: earn a minimum grade point average of 2.00 (a "C" average) on all work completed at BirminghamSouthern College and a minimum grade point average of 2.00 on all work completed for a major or minor. Students who have transferred to BirminghamSouthern College from another institution must have a minimum cumulative 2.00 average, a minimum 2.00 average on all work completed at the College, and a minimum 2.00 average on all courses in the major and minor that are completed at BirminghamSouthern College.

(6) Lecture and arts events: attend 24 approved lecture and arts events. A list of approved lectures, performances, recitals, and events, will be published through print and electronic means. Transfer students must attend at least three events for each term they attend Birmingham-Southern College.

(7) Residency: complete at least two years of work (18 units, including two exploration terms) at BirminghamSouthern College. A student who has transferred to BirminghamSouthern College from another institution must complete at least five units in his or her major discipline, and, if declaring a minor, earn at least half of the required units at BirminghamSouthern College.

If a student has completed the requirements for one baccalaureate degree at BirminghamSouthern College, he or she must earn at least eight units of additional credit in residence at BirminghamSouthern College, and must satisfy all requirements for graduation, in order to complete a second baccalaureate degree. Completion of two majors alone does not warrant the awarding of two separate degrees to graduating students.

(8) Discharge all obligations and college duties.

Explorations Curriculum Requirements

The Explorations Curriculum at Birmingham-Southern emphasizes what students will be able to do as a result of their education. In our view, students who successfully complete a program in the liberal arts from Birmingham-Southern College will be able to do the following:

communicate effectively
solve problems creatively
engage their social and political world
connect their coursework to the wider world
engage in self-directed teaching and learning

These five values embody a liberal arts educational experience and cannot be accomplished through any one discipline or by any one academic area. Many areas share similar approaches or examine similar content; at the same time, disciplines and areas of study are different precisely because they study different materials and approach those materials with different methods.

These similarities and differences in content and methods, we believe, provide generative ground for purposeful exploration and renewed insight. Learning in a liberal arts context is a creative endeavor, one that is best understood as an exploration, whether that exploration addresses ongoing problems considered for many millennia or identifies new, emerging problems unique to citizens of the twenty-first century.

Because we assume these five values require familiarity with multiple disciplines—both the knowledge accumulated in those disciplines and the approaches taken by them—students in the Explorations Curriculum are expected to explore a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches. Likewise, we invite students to seek out connections between the coursework required for general education, the coursework required for a disciplinary or interdisciplinary major, and the wider community.

In order to assist students in their purposeful exploration, we have designed a general education curriculum around each of the five values mentioned above. There is no one way to satisfy these requirements. Students should use this framework to craft their own unique exploration.

Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) credits may not be used to fulfill Explorations Curriculum Requirements, but may be used towards graduation requirements, including the academic areas requirement. For additional information, see the Transfer Credit section of this catalog.

Students may use individual courses to fulfill only one requirement, regardless of the number of designations assigned to a specific course. The following is a list of the course designations described in the requirements and indicated in course registration materials:

CE – Creative Expression
CI – Community Interests
ES – Explorations in Scholarship First-Year Seminar
GP – Global Perspectives
IA – Interpretation or Analysis
QA – Quantitative Analysis
SM – Scientific Methodologies
WR – Writing Reinforcement

Effective Communication. Students should be able to communicate effectively in written, oral, and artistic forms to a variety of audiences. Students develop these skills in three courses:

one first-year seminar in writing and critical thinking (EH 102 or EH 208)
one writing reinforcement course within the major (WR)
one course in creative expression outside the major (CE)
Creative Problem Solving. We expect students to be able to identify and solve problems using a variety of methods. They further develop these abilities through four courses from a range of disciplines:

one course in quantitative analysis (QA)
one course in scientific methodologies (SM)
two courses from two different disciplines in the interpretation or analysis of people, societies, artifacts, or theories (IA)
Civic Engagement. The fully engaged citizen articulates his or her place in the world by attending to historical, social, economic, and geographical differences; such a citizen is equally capable of attending to competing interests by weighing the costs of privileging one perspective over another. To assist students in refining this attention, we invite them to participate in three courses or experiences among the following, with no more than two of the three coming from any one option:
courses in a foreign language
courses whose primary concerns are the understanding of subject matter within a global perspective, be that a cultural, political, social, economic, historical, linguistic, or aesthetic framework (GP)
courses whose primary interests are in competing ethical, moral, or community interests (CI)
a study abroad experience for at least one fall or spring term (no more than one may be counted toward the three)
an approved travel experience during the exploration term (no more than one may be counted toward the three) (GP or CI)
Connectivity. Creative insight and generative problem solving frequently occur by connecting previously disconnected areas of thought. In this vein, we expect students to be able to identify and employ connections within one academic area, among academic areas, and between the academy and the wider world. Two courses, one at the beginning and one at the conclusion of the Explorations Curriculum, assist in developing this ability:

one designated first-year explorations in scholarship seminar (ES)
one connection in scholarship senior seminar, which serves as the senior experience within the major
Self-Directed Teaching and Learning. In any exploration, unplanned, unscripted, or non-routine events frequently provide the most memorable experience. Recognizing the difficulty in scripting the unscripted, we hope to foster such unplanned insights by providing a space for students to engage in independent study, seek out new opportunities and experiences, and actively pursue those experiences based on their own interests and concerns by enrolling in three courses beyond their other general education requirements and outside their major requirements.

Exploration Term

Exploration term refers to a period of four weeks during January that provides an opportunity for innovation and experimentation for both students and faculty. The courses and projects offered during the exploration term may vary in content and technique, but they all share the goal of providing an opportunity for exploration not possible during a regular term, including opportunities for study-travel or focused creative production. In addition to faculty-led projects, students are encouraged to use initiative and imagination to develop their own contracted projects through the Office of Exploration Term and Contract Learning.

First-year students must enroll in an exploration term course listed in the Exploration Term Bulletin. They may not contract individualized exploration projects.

Following the first year of study, students may contract individualized exploration projects. Contracted projects meet the same academic standards as courses listed in the Exploration Term Bulletin and must be supervised by faculty members from Birmingham-Southern College. Each contracted project must be approved by the project sponsor, the student's faculty advisor, the appropriate department chair, and the Exploration Term and Contract Learning Committee.

Students must complete at least two exploration terms. Each project counts as a full unit. Projects used to fulfill Explorations Curriculum requirements must receive a letter grade. For those majors where the exploration term is used for the senior project, the senior project must receive a letter grade. A transfer student who meets only the minimum residency requirements for a degree must complete two exploration projects.

All exploration projects are recorded on permanent records and class schedules according to discipline abbreviations (including "GEN" for those projects outside of the disciplines offered at the College). If required for the major, senior exploration projects will be recorded as 499; all other projects will be recorded as 299. Each fall a published Exploration Term Bulletin lists projects offered in the upcoming term; all disciplines typically offer projects.