Dec 14, 2024  
Undergraduate Catalog 2023-2024 
    
Undergraduate Catalog 2023-2024 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

BELL Core Requirements


Dr. Nathan Griffith, Director

Vision:   

The diverse educational communities of a comprehensive university have a common interest in liberal learning. Liberal learning nurtures each student’s capability for transforming human culture and complements professional and vocational pathways. Liberal education involves acquiring fundamental intellectual skills; becoming conversant with a variety of human ideas, cultural perspectives, and conceptual frameworks; and developing habits of ethical reflecting and acting in an interdependent world. This vision of General Education enables Belmont University to achieve its vision to be a premier teaching university, bringing together the best of liberal arts and professional education in a Christian community of learning and service.  

Purpose:  

General Education at Belmont University fosters the skills, knowledge, perspectives, values, and dispositions that will enable students to apply their understandings and abilities beyond the classroom, encouraging them to become responsibly engaged in their community and in the world. 

Values:

These values will be infused throughout the courses in the General Education curriculum and pursued through a wide variety of active learning experiences, all of which seek to meet the learning goals delineated below: 

  •  The importance of life-long intellectual growth and development;
  •  The importance of moral values and personal commitments;
  •  The importance of the application of classroom learning to the “real world”;
  •  The importance of extending the boundaries of learning beyond the classroom.

 

The BELL Core requirements are in the three parts listed below:
 

Signature Courses (16 hours). These put Belmont’s unique signature on a liberal arts education by providing vertical structure and establishing two particular areas of strength.

  • First-Year Seminar (3 hours)
  • Interdisciplinary Learning Communities (hours count elsewhere)
  • Junior Cornerstone (hours count elsewhere)
  • Senior Capstone (1-3 hours)
  • Writing, First and Third Year (6 hours)
  • Religion, First and Third Year (6 hours)

Click here to view courses options for Signature courses  

Foundations Courses (22 hours). These are the proper foundation of every human being’s education, representing a spectrum of learning that is roughly akin to the traditional liberal arts.

  • Oral Communication (3 hours)
  • Social Science (3 hours)
  • Humanities (3 hours)
  • Fine Arts (3 hours)
  • Quantitative Reasoning (3 hours)
  • Lab Science (4 hours)
  • Wellness (3 hours)

Click here to view course options for Foundations courses  

Degree Cognates (0-15 hours). These distinguish the various degrees from one another, indicating the extension of liberal learning that is appropriate to each distinct degree. You are only required to take the hours listed under the particular degree you are pursuing. Students should choose Degree Cognates in different subjects than the Foundation Courses (2 different prefixes). 

 

  • Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.): 6 hours

 

  • Bachelor of Arts (B.A.): 15 hours
    • 3 additional hours in Social Science
    • 3 additional hours in Humanities
    • 6 hours in Foreign Language (at the 2000 or higher level)
    • 3 additional hours in Science

 

  • Bachelor of Science (B.S.): 15 hours
    • 6 additional hours in Social Science
    • 3 additional hours in Humanities
    • 3 additional hours in Math
    • 3 additional hours in Science

 

  • Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies (B.S.A.S.): 15 hours
    • HIS 1020  World History after 1500
    • SOC 1010  Introduction to Sociology
    • 3 additional hours in Humanities
    • 3 additional hours in Math
    • 3 additional hours in Science

 

  • Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.): 12 hours
    • ECO 2210 , Principles of Macroeconomics (3 hours)
    • ECO 2220 , Principles of Microeconomics (3 hours)
    • MTH 1150 , Elementary Statistics (3 hours)
    • 3 additional hours in Humanities

 

  • Bachelor of Science in Nursing (B.S.N.): 6-7 hours
    • PSY 1100  , General Psychology (3 hours) OR PSY 1200  : Introduction to Psychological Science (4 hours)
    • CEM 1020  , General, Organic, and Biochemistry (3 hours)

 

  • Bachelor of Science in Public Health (B.S.P.H.): 13 Hours
    • MTH 1151 , Elementary Statistics for the Sciences (3 Hours)
    • PSC 1300 , U.S. and World Affairs (3 Hours)
    • ECO 2220 , Principles of Microeconomics (3 Hours)
    • BIO 1160  and BIO 1165  Principles of Biology II (4 Hours)

 

  • Bachelor of Social Work (B.S.W.): 12 hours
    • 6 additional hours in Social Science
    • MTH 1150  , Elementary Statistics
    • PSY 1100  , General Psychology (3 hours) OR PSY 1200  , Introduction to Psychological Science (4 hours)

 

  • Bachelor of Music (B.M.): no Degree Cognates

 

  • Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.): no Degree Cognates

 

More information about the BELL Core, including the BELL Core handbook, can be found on the BELL Core website.