The broad rules and expectations of courses in ConnectED can be found on our "Propose a class" webpage.

Students are subject to the regulations in the Bulletin in effect at the time they enter VCU, so students enrolled before Fall 2021 will continue to be required to complete the previous general education requirements. If students choose to transfer to a newer bulletin, then the newer rules would apply. Consequently, for a few years it will be necessary to ensure that courses that meet both sets of GenEd requirements.

A course may not count as both a ConnectED general education course and as a core course in a major. A core course in a major is one that is required for all students enrolled in the major, regardless of the particular track or concentration within the major they have chosen to complete. SCHEV requires that all students within a particular major have at least 25% of their major requirements (excluding general education) comprised of core major courses.

Every major should review their undergraduate major requirements to ensure that no specific general education courses are required for their students and that all tracks or concentrations within their undergraduate majors share 25% of their credits in major core courses.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), VCU’s regional accreditor, has a number of requirements for general education. In particular, SACSCOC standards require that all students take at least one course in three general disciplinary areas. These disciplinary areas map to ConnectED's Breadth of Knowledge requirement:

• Math/natural science
• Social/behavioral science
• Humanities/fine arts

Course proposals must indicate if the proposed ConnectED courses fall into one of these three categories so we can track that students are meeting this requirement.

The General Education Curriculum Committee (GECC) is responsible for implementing and maintaining the general education curriculum for the university.

Consisting of representatives from all major undergraduate units across the university, the GECC meets at least once per month during the academic year and reviews, approves or denies proposals for courses requesting admission into ConnectED. It is also responsible for reviewing current ConnectED courses to ensure that they are still meeting the expected goals of the curriculum.

Learn more about the General Education Curriculum Committee »

The General Education Assessment Committee (GEAC) is responsible for the assessment of the ConnectED program. Information about GEAC's membership can be found on the Office of the Provost website.

In his February 2022 State of the Academic Affairs Address, Provost Sotiropoulos presented his vision for adding foundational literacies in computational thinking and entrepreneurship to ConnectED by fall 2025.

To fulfill this vision, Computational Literacy and Entrepreneurial Literacy Work Groups were charged on April 1, 2022. These work groups will provide recommendations to the General Education Curriculum Committee on:

• The definition of computational and entrepreneurial literacies
• Criteria by which courses may be developed to achieve these literacies
• An assessment plan for the literacy in collaboration with the General Education Assessment Committee

Additional information about these literacies will be shared with the VCU community as they are developed.

The Racial Literacy requirement for general education will go into effect starting in fall 2023. To find out more information about this requirement or to propose a racial literacy course, click here.

The General Education Assessment Committee (GEAC) has created a "map" for all current ConnectED courses and their designated learning goals. You can find that document here. For each goal selected by the course name, your course will be asked to participate in the program assessment for ConnectED. The current schedule for learning goals assessment can be found here. To discuss the process for assessment contact the GEAC leadership at assessmentge@vcu.edu.