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GEP Update Special Edition Summer 2025

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Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the GEP team, thank you for your support and participation in the multiyear effort to redefine UCF’s General Education Program to align with Florida Senate Bill 266 and statute 1007.25(3). Our goal is to meet state guidelines and provide students with options and flexibility to fulfill general education, State Writing and Math Requirements (formerly known as Gordon Rule courses) and Civic Literacy requirements and, when possible, complete prerequisites for their major.

The updated program goes into effect in the 2025-26 catalog year. The updated program has five statewide core foundations—communication, humanities, mathematics, social sciences and natural sciences—with clearly defined learning outcomes. To ensure the program continues to meet student needs and state expectations, all public colleges and universities in Florida will annually review and certify their GEP courses, with approval from their boards of trustees and the Florida Board of Governors.

Beginning this fall, UCF will also modify its GEP assessment process to measure the state’s new learning outcomes and prepare for the transition to a new accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission. We’re sharing this information now to give you time to adjust your GEP assessment plans and ensure a smooth transition.

Please read the following article for information about the new foundations and learning outcomes. If you have questions about UCF’s new GEP or the assessment process, please email the GEP team.

Enjoy the summer!

Dr. Wayne H. Bowen
Interim Dean
College of Undergraduate Studies

Get Ready! GEP Foundations and Learning Outcomes Are Changing

Florida has updated the state’s General Education Program (GEP) and learning outcomes (LO). UCF has updated its GEP to comply with the new requirements. At the same time, the university is preparing to transition to a new accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission.

We understand that these changes may initially require extra work for faculty. However, implementing them at the start of a new assessment cycle is intended to ease the transition and minimize long-term disruption. By aligning with the State of Florida’s standardized learning outcomes, we can also ensure greater consistency with other institutions across the state, ultimately reducing the need for future revisions.

What You Need to Know

  • The state introduced new foundations—communication, humanities, mathematics, social sciences and natural sciences—and LOs.

  • Gordon Rule courses have been renamed to State Writing and Math Requirements.

  • Starting in fall 2025, faculty members teaching a GEP course must include at least one assignment that measures at least one of the new general education foundations’ LOs.

  • You may continue to include your own course-specific LOs, but make sure the state-mandated LOs are also measured.

OLD: Foundation Name and Learning Outcomes

Communication

  1. Comprehend, use, and/or apply information for audiences in rhetorically appropriate ways (e.g., sources, ideas, disciplinary content).

  2. Communicate in rhetorically and stylistically appropriate ways for a range of audiences, purposes, forums, and occasions.

  3. Conduct and present research in rhetorically appropriate ways.

  4. Employ communication principles, techniques, or concepts to identify, explain, or address challenges facing society

Cultural Interactions

  1. Identify and discuss themes that are both common and distinct among diverse cultures.

  2. Analyze and discuss the cultural significance of pieces of art, performances, or texts from diverse aesthetic, historical, and social contexts.

  3. Compare and interrogate sources of meaning and/or value related to the process of cultural production across social and historical contexts.

  4. Employ principles, techniques, or concepts associated with the study of cultural interactions to identify, explain, or address challenges facing society.

Interpretation & Evaluation

  1. Demonstrate mastery of discipline specific vocabulary and concepts.

  2. Recognize social, political, or economic problems and evaluate solutions to those problems.

  3. Understand how to collect, evaluate, or interpret data to draw conclusions.

  4. Recognize and interpret the impact of social, economic, and political institutions on the wellbeing of individuals in a country.

  5. Employ social science principles, techniques, or concepts to identify, explain, or address challenges facing society.

Knowledge Application

  1. Characterize a scientific theory as a product of objective evidence and scientific methods.

  2. Interpret, develop, and use visual representations of data to make and support inferences from scientific observations.

  3. Identify observational data as the foundation of a scientific argument.

  4. Employ scientific principles, techniques, or concepts to identify, explain, or address challenges facing society.

Problem Solving

  1. Interpret posed real world computational, conceptual, or statistical problems.

  2. Apply learned computational, conceptual, or statistical concepts or skills to solve problems.

  3. Analyze results of a real world computational, conceptual, or statistical problems.

  4. Employ problem solving principles, techniques, or concepts to identify, explain, or address challenges facing society.

NEW: Foundation Name and Learning Outcomes

Communication

  1. Be able to analyze the situational characteristics of a communication act, including audience, purpose and source or author.

  2. Exhibit an understanding of communication and speaking skills.

  3. Write in a clear, logical and appropriate manner.

  4. Conduct research academic topics and synthesize that research:

    1. in speech, with appropriate citations, and

    2. in writing, with correct documentation.

  5. Demonstrate an awareness of diversity in American society.

Humanities

  1. Gather, synthesize and analyze information from appropriate sources, and critically evaluate both the information and its sources for accuracy and credibility.

  2. Identify and develop an appreciation for common human themes and the richness of diverse cultures.

  3. Analyze and discuss the meaning of an artwork, performance or text within diverse aesthetic, historical and cultural contexts.

  4. Apply knowledge and critical thinking to the concepts, styles and aesthetic, theoretical and critical principles of the arts.

  5. Articulate the chronology and significance of major events and movements in Western civilization, U.S. history or world civilizations.

Social Sciences

  1. Gather and synthesize information from appropriate sources, and evaluate both the content and its origins for accuracy and reliability.

  2. Understand how social, economic and political institutions shape an individual’s role in the world.

  3. Recognize and appreciate your potential impact within social, economic and political institutions.

  4. Demonstrate knowledge of how social, economic and political systems interact and function together.

  5. Be able to understand how individuals think, behave and relate to others within psychological, political, economic and social contexts.

Natural Sciences

  1. Exhibit an understanding of science as an empirical effort to acquire information about the real world, develop possible explanations of phenomena, and test those explanations by predicting the outcomes of future observations.

  2. Demonstrate the ability to assess the extent to which claims presented as “scientific” meet the empirical standards of scientific explanations.

  3. Articulate an understanding of scientific knowledge and problem-solving in a physical or life science.

Mathematical

  1. Demonstrate the skills needed to solve quantitative problems, including selecting appropriate techniques and/or technologies.

  2. Solve real-world quantitative problems effectively.

  3. Exhibit a qualitative understanding of mathematical, statistical, and computing concepts.

  4. Understand core computing concepts relevant to academic degrees and related professions.

  5. Be able to use essential computing skills common to academic degrees and professions, especially those related to the use of computers and application software.

Resources

  • GEP Faculty Learning Community and webpage: Outline the new GEP, learning outcomes and assessment instructions. 

  • New Quizzes tool: Will automatically assign outcome scores—no need to manually select rubric categories. Instructions for this are also available in the GEP Learning Community.

  • GEP team: Will help you navigate the new foundations and learning outcomes.

As you begin to plan your fall semester, it might be a great time to start thinking about your plan to adapt to these GEP curriculum changes.

We truly appreciate your dedication and flexibility as we work together to strengthen our GEP. We hope you enjoy the summer and prepare for a fantastic fall!

We will be scheduling workshops and consultation in the fall to help you update and setup your GEP assessments. We’ll share information at the start of the semester. In the meantime, if you have questions or need help updating your assignments, please email the GEP team.