Liberal Arts Gateway
Austin Community College
Liberal Arts Gateway
Liberal Arts Gateway (LAG) courses are designed to help students develop the skills, knowledge, and mindset needed to succeed in college and beyond, no matter what pathway they choose. LAG courses are open to everyone. Just sign up!
Every LAG course is on the core curriculum and therefore found on most program maps.
Liberal Arts Gateway courses put the student experience on centerstage through engaging themes, interesting assignments, and course activities that invite you to contribute your perspective and aspirations. LAG courses build equity and inclusion from the ground up, and our professors help you learn skills not just for the next course, but for a lifetime of learning and leadership.
Visit our Course Offerings page for a list of LAG classes.
Want to know more? Check out our FAQs, read our Program Effectiveness Report, ask a question, or read the Dean’s Vision.
Want to propose a LAG course in your department or establish your own discipline gateway? Check out Discipline Gateways below.
Liberal Arts Gateway Details
Student-Centered
- Student-centered course designs
- Equity and inclusion build into all facets of the course, from recruitment to materials and assignments and beyond
- Responsiveness to down path stakeholders: What needs will our students face in the next course, the degree plan, transfer institution/employer, career, family, community, and ultimately, The Good Life? Have those needs in mind when you build your course.
Aspiration
The Liberal Arts can save civilization by equipping students to thrive in a pluralistic society through deep engagement in our discipline.
Five P’s of Intellectual Character
Liberal Arts Gateway courses help foster the Five P’s on intellectual Character.
PERSEVERE
Don’t give up — in this assignment, in this course, in a conversation, in a line of inquiry, in the pursuit of truth, or in the work of saving civilization.
PROGRESS
Learn how to gauge progress for yourself — benchmarks, indicators, self-reflection, honesty (with yourself, above all). We stand on the shoulders of giants, but give yourself credit for climbing up there to have a look.
PRODUCE
Produce meaningful intellectual work — and challenge yourself to do better work every next time.
PROMOTE
Promote the fruits of your work to others — both as a courageous attempt to say something true and as an invitation to hear others critique your work.
PERPETUATE
Perpetuate these traits, deepen them into habits of mind, and expand them to encompass more and more of your intellectual life.
Liberal Arts Gateway
Mission & Principles
The mission of the Liberal Arts Gateway is to save civilization by equipping students for productive lives in a pluralistic society. The image of the gateway is a metaphor of our aspiration: Every gateway opens into a pathway.
Avoid trivializing the notion of pathways. We have adopted “pathways” at ACC, and that has largely meant a critique of historic practices leading to relatively superficial changes in the way we shepherd students through our System. For instance, we have published degree maps so we know what course comes next. We have streamlined the admissions process and provided additional enrollment support. We have grouped an impressive number of programs and pathways into ten, intelligible Areas of Study.
Those changes and the wayfinding they provide are useful improvements. But there’s a much grander vision of pathways we could adopt, particularly for the grand mission of the liberal arts. So let’s think bigger — we are after all talking about saving civilization . . . Read More –>
Liberal Arts Gateway
Get Involved
Do you want to be a part of the Liberal Arts Gateway (LAG) mission? Here’s how.
Liberal Arts Gateway courses are informed both by the Liberal Arts Gateway principles and by reflection on how these principles translate into design principles for each discipline. LAG courses will maintain some uniformity of terminology and wayfinding, but the key characteristic of a LAG course is that it is grounded in deep engagement with a discipline.
We expect different disciplines to embody the LAG principles in their own ways: This pluralism is designed into the LAG initiative, both as a reflection of what is of enduring value about the study of the liberal arts and as a way of modeling the values we hold as a community of liberal arts scholars.
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- Learn more about the Liberal Arts Gateway’s guiding principles
- Submit a LAG course proposal in your discipline/department
- Join the LAG program in your department or form a LAG committee
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Discipline Gateways
One of the foundations of the Liberal Arts Gateway is to provide students an experience of engagement with the “disciplinarity of the discipline”—the substances that give each discipline its distinctiveness in terms of subject matter and method—while identifying points of contact and resonance across the liberal arts. From this, it follows that each department articulates distinctive course design principles as a discipline-specific implementation of the Liberal Arts Gateway philosophy.
To learn more about the application process and to apply for a Level One Fellowship, please click on your department from the list below.
Create A Discipline Gateway Committee
If you do not see your department name in the list above, please contact Chris Berni @ cberni@austincc.edu or Matthew M. Daude @ mdaude@austincc.edu to create your own discipline gateway. This process is also supported by the Liberal Arts Gateway Redesign Fellowship, Level 1.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
1) What is Liberal Arts Gateway?
LAG is an initiative that Liberal Arts—Humanities and Communication is spearheading (we have a number of courses this semester in English and Philosophy, Religion, & Humanities), which is basically a thematic approach to these courses geared toward helping students think deeply, write critically, and find additional relevance and meaning in what they study. The courses improve the student experience and do not require special approval to enroll.
Liberal Arts Gateway courses are designed to help you develop the skills, knowledge, and mindset you need to succeed, no matter what your chosen pathway in college—and beyond.
LAG courses are open to everyone — just sign up! Every LAG course is on the core, so you’ll find LAG courses on most program maps.
LAG courses put the student experience centerstage through engaging themes, interesting assignments, and course activities that invite you to contribute your perspective and aspirations. LAG courses build in equity and inclusion from the ground up, and our professors help you learn skills not just for the next course, but for a lifetime of learning and leadership.
2) If I take an ENGL 1302 LAG course, would it count towards my degree plan?
Yes. This is the same 3-credits and works for any degree plan that requires ENGL 1302. This is the same for every LAG course in all disciplines.
3) Will my LAG course transfer if I’m planning to apply to a four-year institution?
Yes. It is still recognized as the same course as a non-LAG designated course. For example, ENGL 1301 LAG will appear as ENGL 1301 on your transcript. “Liberal Arts Gateway” is for ACC purposes only; it will not appear on your transcript.
4) Do I have to be a specific major to take this course?
No, students from all majors are welcome to take a LAG course.
5) Can I take additional LAG courses in future semesters?
Yes, you can take additional LAG courses in the core curriculum as you progress through your degree. The aim is for you to be able to select from a variety of topics that suit your interests even in your first two years of college.
6) Can I switch between LAG and non-LAG courses?
You can switch sections during the add-drop period (the first two days of the semester) without penalty. You will want to consult the course schedule and an advisor to be sure about your options.
Still have questions?
Liberal Arts Gateway
Faculty Leadership
Austin Community College
Academic Excellence
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