As a basis of a Wartburg College education, the Essential Education (Ess Ed) plan is comprised of a series of challenges that help create liberally educated, ethically-minded citizens for the 21st century.

Essential Education (Ess Ed) will provide students with the following outcomes:

· thinking strategies in developmentally appropriate levels,
· college-level competencies in fundamental thinking and communication skills,
· knowledge of the uniqueness as well as connectedness of academic discipline(s),
· ability to integrate faith with learning.

Augmenting these basic outcomes, EssEd provides special emphases (across the curriculum) in

· information literacy (finding and evaluating information)
· diversity (appreciating diverse ideas, peoples, and approaches to problem-solving)
· speaking (articulating orally one's ideas and beliefs persuasively, cogently, and authoritatively)
· writing (achieving mastery in various rhetorical situations)
· ethics (understanding the ethical dimensions of ideas and their consequences).

The introductory level

IS (Inquiry Studies) Courses look at problems/ situations with the point of modeling how educated people formulate and respond to questions of personal and social importance. Designed as "pre-disciplinary" courses, IS courses favor broad processes of inquiry and articulation over narrow content and responses.

The second level

IC (Interconnected) Courses introduce students to the unique contributions of disciplines to our understanding of themes, issues, and fields of knowledge. These courses also connect a unique disciplinary understanding to another discipline's perspective (upon the same object of study), thus allowing students to experience how varied approaches and vocabularies provide new and useful insights.

The third level

ID (Interdisciplinary Courses) require students to synthesize knowledge. Students draw upon the work in their major(s) and experiences in IS and IC courses as they integrate knowledge across the humanities/fine arts, social sciences, and natural sciences. Such integration serves the understanding of a complex social, historical, or philosophical issue.

EssEd approaches the challenges of thinking/expressing skills via three components: verbal reasoning (writing and speech), mathematical reasoning, and scientific reasoning. Wartburg believes that competency in these three areas is central to producing the cognitive outcomes of liberal learning, which are in turn central to good citizenship and career success.

As a college of the ELCA, Wartburg College takes seriously its duty not only to foster spiritual as well as intellectual growth, but also to help students integrate the two. To this end, EssEd asks students to take two religion/philosophy courses, the first in years one or two and the second in years three or four. The first of these courses provides students with the opportunity for in-depth study of the Biblical tradition. The second course, chosen among a number of options, will concern how Christian traditions or the Western philosophical traditions have addressed ultimate questions of Being and value in human experience.

The capstone, the only course required in EssEd specifically included in students' majors, completes the process of integration. In the capstone, students are expected to synthesize the various intellectual strategies and forms of knowledge that they have been exposed to in their majors.

Essential Education	Courses
Thinking Strategies Total cc = 7	1cc - Inquiry Studies 101 Asking the Right Questions 1cc Inquiry Studies 201 Living in a Diverse World 4 cc 1cc Natural Science with laboratory 1cc Social Science 1cc Humanities/Fine Arts 1cc Humanities/Fine Arts or Social Science 1cc Interdisciplinary Studies course
Reasoning Skills Total cc = 3.5	1cc Mathematical Reasoning 1cc - Scientific Reasoning 1cc Verbal Reasoning (English 112) 1/2cc Oral Communication (Communication Arts 112)
Literacies Total cc = 1	1cc 1 Foreign Language 2 Writing Intensive courses during years 3 & 4 * 1cc Diversity course* Oral communication proficiency within the major* Information Literacy proficiency within the major*
Faith and Learning Total cc = 2	1cc Religion 100 Literature of the Old and New Testament 1cc - Faith and Reflection course
Health and Wellness Total cc = .5	1/2cc PE 100 Introduction to Physical Fitness
The Capstone Total cc = .5 to 1	.5 - 1cc Select the course associated with the major
Total	14.5 - 15

* These requirements are embedded into general education, electives, and/or the major.