SEU Essentials

General Education Program

The SEU Essentials General Education Program at Saint Elizabeth University seeks to introduce students to the University's community of learning through engagement with a curriculum and co-curricular activities that are intentional, developmental, integrated and mission-driven.

SEU Essentials provides students with a breadth of academic competencies, skills for personal enrichment, and the desire for life-long learning.

Firmly grounded in the Catholic liberal arts tradition, SEU Essentials prepares students to meet the challenges of a carefully considered life in a diverse and interdependent world. Above all, SEU Essentials provides students with a foundation in the knowledge, skills, and experiences that are necessary to think critically, communicate effectively, and act ethically. Through SEU Essentials, students will learn about themselves as well as the spiritual, natural, social, ethical, and aesthetic worlds around them.

SEU Essentials provides a unique curriculum composed of four Elements. Courses in Element I use an integrated learning community format designed to provide foundational academic skills essential for student success in college, career, and life. Building on Element I, courses in Element II are team-taught in order to provide students with inter/multi-disciplinary perspectives on different ways of knowing.

Courses in Element III engage students in a meaningful service-learning activity that is core to the Vincentian mission of the University. Service-learning is a course-based educational process combining engagement in the community and guided reflection designed to raise awareness of social problems and their root causes. Courses in Element III emphasize faith, spirituality, and ethics. Element IV is a Capstone Seminar course designed to provide students with the opportunity to reflect on, and integrate their whole SEU Essentials learning experience.