Undergraduate Programs - Overview & Curricular Framework

Alaska Pacific University offers undergraduate programs focusing on the Arts and Sciences, Professional Studies, and Early Honors, a dual-credit option for high school seniors.

Degree programs in the Arts and Sciences prepare students for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century, locally and globally.  Professional Studies programs at the undergraduate level advance leadership to meet pressing professional needs particularly for Alaska.  The Early Honors Program guides high school seniors through to graduation with college-level coursework and preparation for successful entry into universities of their choosing.

Degree Programs in the Arts & Sciences

At the core of APU’s liberal arts mission, full-time students pursue distinctive bachelor-level programs in Counseling Psychology (B.A.), Creative & Professional Writing (B.A.), Liberal Studies (B.A.), Marine & Environmental Sciences (B.S.), Outdoor Studies (B.A.), and Sustainability Studies (B.A.).  With opportunities for travel courses, educational exchanges, internships, and unique concentrations, these programs provide students with knowledge, skills, and experience for entre into meaningful careers or graduate study.

Courses are offered in a variety of modes, with the expectation that each semester students take a single, intensive 4-week ‘block’ course, followed by an 11-week ‘session’ where multiple courses are taken.  In the ‘block and session’ format, students are more focused on fewer subjects at one time – providing more opportunity for active learning and deep understanding.

Coursework is designed to efficiently move students through 4-year degree programs while developing the university’s Essential Competencies as well as specialized knowledge and skills in the discipline.  Degree programs include:  the first-year experiences which connect students to their academic interests and passions;  sophomore seminars focusing on professional considerations in their fields of study;  junior practicum and internships for career-readiness and research applications; and culminating senior projects.

Degree Programs in Professional Studies

APU’s professional programs are designed specifically for students who are working while going to school, and want to begin or complete a degree in the fields of Alaska Native Governance (B.A.), Business Administration (A.A.), and Business Administration & Management (B.A.).  The curriculum is structured to be manageable for those who are employed part-time or full-time, and framed with the expectation that work experience will inform coursework and vice versa.  Evening, eLearning, and module-format courses improve educational access and professional development for students who are otherwise unable to take advantage of traditional campus-based degree programs.  Students in professional programs, can though avail themselves of any courses offered at APU, not just evening and online sections.

The professional degree programs focus intently on how theories and course content are relevant to Alaska and Alaska Native communities, agencies, businesses, institutions, organizations, and initiatives.  Methods of instruction reflect APU’s active learning philosophy. Such learning experiences include engaging in independent research, participating in peer-group learning, managing and executing projects, and writing and reflection.

Early Honors Program

Alaska Pacific University offers the Early Honors Program for qualified high school seniors. Early Honors students take a full year of classes at APU as non-degree seeking students, fulfilling remaining high school graduation requirements while also earning transferable college credit. Students gain an appreciation of the arts and sciences, and build and refine their analytical and expressive reasoning powers.

During the first semester, Early Honors students enroll in a common university-level curriculum designed to satisfy requirements of the Anchorage and Mat-Su School Districts. The Fall Block starts off with the required course, CRIT 13300 Critical Thinking. During Fall Session, students enroll in designated sections of WRIT 10100 Argumentation, the second required course of the progam. As well, students are encouraged to pursue math and science coursework in the Fall Session in order to advance their studies in these crucial areas.  Placement in math courses depends on prior coursework in high school, and there are choices among the science offerings, including biology, chemistry, physics, and geology.

In the second semester, Early Honors students elect to participate in the Literature and Culture Travel Course for the January Block (see HUM 20400 Travel: Literature and Culture) or another course from offerings in communications, psychology, outdoor studies, or the humanities. During the Spring Session, students have the opportunity to select courses relevant to their personal and academic interests.

Because APU does not grant high school diplomas, students remain enrolled in their home high schools, and work with their high school registrar and guidance counselor to graduate from those schools. The Early Honors advisors assist in this process to ensure that high school graduation requirements are met.

Active Learning & APU

APU’s curriculum is distinguished by the university’s mission to create engaged learning communities, grounded in active learning.  Combining reflective discussion with hands-on experiential learning—through individual and group projects, practicum or work experience, and directed study—APU promotes the fullest development of its undergraduates through student-centered education.

Active learning refers to the process of deep understanding that comes from interactive and reflective education rather than rote memorization and information recall.

Active learning may take place through field study, practical and hands-on exercises, individual and group projects, writing and discussion, or peer-review and self-assessment.  Most importantly, active learning develops within our students the ability to proactively apply and further their understandings of content learned in class beyond the course itself.

There is a difference between ‘active’ and ‘active learning.’ Active may mean you are physically moving.  Active learning means you are reading, writing, discussing, describing, interacting, listening, and most importantly, reflecting on the issues at hand. The ‘active’ aspect of this process refers to the ways in which students move ideas from their studies in to the world - applying knowledge and theory beyond the classroom.  Active learning places the learner in charge of his/her own learning, making the process deeply significant and relevant.

Active learning involves problem solving, critical thinking, and evaluation of how you know what you know.  Irrespective of how APU courses are delivered, active learning frames APU curriculum, with attention to skillful and creative strategies for issue appraisal and problem-solving that can be taken forward and applied in real-world contexts.

Competency-Based Curriculum & APU

APU degree programs instill lifelong love of learning, contribute to personal and professional well-being, and lead to critical and creative care of our world. APU graduates demonstrate competencies crucial for meaningful placement and professional advancement.

‘Competency’ refers to an acquired knowledge, ability, or skill that facilitates achievement or accomplishment.  ‘Competency-based curriculum’ refers to educational programs designed intentionally to develop and assess particular competencies, from beginning through successively higher levels of achievement.

APU embraces this conceptual framework, with identification of five Essential Competencies that are developed through all undergraduate programs.  These priorities correspond to recommendations from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP).   APU programs foster high-level intellectual and practical skills, wide-ranging knowledge of science, cultures, and society, and an active commitment to personal and social responsibility.

APU Essential Competencies

Intellectual and Practical Skills developed extensively across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance
         1.  Effective Communication
         2.  Critical Thinking
Knowledge of Human Culture and our World focused by engagement with big  questions, both contemporary and enduring
         3.  Cultural & Historical Perspective
         4.  Scientific Inquiry
Personal and Social Responsibility anchored through active involvement with real-world challenges, local and global
         5.  Ethical Engagement

Degree Programs & Pathways to Competency Attainment

Competency-based curriculum across undergraduate degree programs focuses on Essential Competencies and other learning outcomes that are prioritized and attained through active, integrative, and applied learning.

• Active learning is experienced through student-centered approaches that prioritize reflective processing of information, skills of project management, and shared responsibility for the learning outcomes.
• Integration is marked by assessed accomplishments across foundational and major studies.
• Application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities is practiced through increasingly complex problems, and realized in real-world experience and demonstration projects.

Each undergraduate degree program is comprised of the following pathway to competency attainment:

• Foundational Studies  – introducing Essential Competencies and developing aptitude through Active Learning methodologies
• Major Studies  – further developing Essential Competencies through the integration of specialized knowledge and skills, with attention to application of knowledge in real-world contexts, and at the bachelor’s level culminating in senior projects which realize Essential Competencies and demonstrate professionalism
• Self-Determined Studies  – at the bachelor’s level, providing for self-direction in educational opportunities

Defining the Essential Competencies

1.  Effective Communication
Effective communication involves writing, presentation of ideas in public forums, sharing of information through networks, systems, and organizations, and has as its goal to affect the knowledge or behavior of others. Effective communication requires clarity of one’s own expression through various formats and media, with appreciation for meaning, tone, style, nuance, and content of others’ expression.   Effective communication is essential to success in all of life, from education and employment to parenting and relationships.  Effective communicators construct clear and persuasive presentations of ideas and concerns, elicit and share information in ethical ways, and foster collaborative and civil discourse.

• Foundational Competency - Students demonstrate skills of written communication, public presentation, and media literacy with the ability to argue particular positions and situate information for inquiry purposes in forms and formats appropriate to different research contexts.
• Integrated Competency - Students advance competency focusing on technical writing skills in the area of specialization and demonstrating the ability to develop content for disciplinary or professional contexts.
• Realized Competency - Graduates demonstrate the ability to get one’s point across in writing, presentations, and organizations in order to share information, teach others, and foster collaboration.

2.  Critical Thinking
Critical thinking involves thinking about thinking.  It is the skill of recognizing problems and raising vital questions, identifying appropriate computational approaches to frame problems and offer solutions, gathering pertinent information, and analyzing unstated assumptions and values within that information. Critical thinking requires diligence in critiquing one’s own fundamental assumptions as well as respectfully inquiring into the assumptions of others.  Critical thinking, effectively practiced, appraises evidence in order to reach reasoned conclusions and solutions that make a difference.

• Foundational Competency - Students demonstrate the ability to think within alternative systems of thought and diverse methods of reasoning, recognizing and assessing their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences.
• Integrated Competency - Students advance competency focusing on quantitative reasoning related to the area of specialization and information literacy to analyze and evaluate sources and truth claims.
• Realized Competency - Graduates demonstrate the ability to compute, analyze, make sense of information or data, and reach reasoned conclusions cognizant of possible bias or fallacies.

3.  Cultural & Historical Perspective
Cultural and historical perspective involves analysis, appreciative and critical, of how humans have documented, theorized, represented, and imagined existence.  Perspective requires the capacity to consider ideas and issues in relation to larger contexts so as to demonstrate accurate and fair understanding of situations.  Cultural and historical perspective requires the ability to interpret human expression in our own time and through the centuries, reflect on intellectual traditions and creative endeavors, and develop understanding of one’s own and others’ worldviews.  Effectively demonstrated, cultural and historical perspective engages enduring questions of life, religion, consciousness, and creativity with contemporary attention to individual, community, and cultural values.

• Foundational Competency - Students demonstrate ability to interpret and compare intellectual traditions, creative endeavors, and cultural and spiritual worldviews.
• Integrated Competency - Students advance competency focusing on local and global perspectives of particular import to the area of specialization.
• Realized Competency - Graduates demonstrate the ability to effectively consider tradition and heritage in relation to decision-making in a world shaped by diverse cultures and abiding histories.

4.  Scientific Inquiry
Scientific inquiry involves critical observation and documentation of the natural and social environments within which we live.  Related to the biological/physical sciences, inquiry requires the development of knowledge to collect and interpret data from the natural world, investigate fundamental aspects of that data, and contextualize findings.  Related to the social/behavioral sciences, inquiry requires effective evaluation and contextualization of human social behavior at the individual and societal levels.  Developed through appropriate research methods and applications, informed inquiry  in all fields results in observations that are gleaned, analyzed, utilized, and disseminated for further understanding of the human condition and our world.

• Foundational Competency - Students demonstrate ability to observe, document, and interpret data, and further to report on findings.  Students develop inquiry skills and explore conceptual frameworks in the natural and social/behavioral sciences.
• Integrated Competency - Students advance competency focusing on research methods and applications appropriate to area of specialization.
• Realized Competency - Graduates demonstrate the ability to reach verifiable conclusions based on documented observations, findings, and recognized methods in order to know how things work in our world.

5.  Ethical Engagement
Ethical engagement involves the way in which we make choices between competing moral principles, determine who or what is good, and question how we live a good life. Ethical engagement requires examination of rights, obligations, benefits, and fairness.  Ethical engagement requires consideration of how moral standards are reasoned, and how such standards espouse virtuous action as well as obligations to refrain from bad actions. On a personal level, ethical engagement requires the examination of one’s own standards to develop self-direction and responsibility for individual decisions and actions. On a societal level, ethical engagement develops the capability to face challenging dilemmas through principled guidelines.  Further, with attention to local and global sustainability, ethical engagement develops the capacity for creative and critical care of our world.

• Foundational Competency - Students demonstrate the ability to reason through questions of right and wrong, good and bad, and rights and responsibilities.   Students develop personal responsibility with attention to self-direction and individual decision-making.  Students develop social responsibility with attention to the contested and enduring question of what is good for individuals and society.
• Integrated Competency - Students advance competency focusing on ethics in the context of specific disciplines, organizations, or professions.  Students also explore the ethical dilemma of sustainability in the 21st century, with its conjoined and competing interests in doing well ethically for people, environmentally for the planet, and economically for profit.
• Realized Competency - Graduates demonstrate ability to raise needed questions and apply ethical and effective problem-framing and problem-solving to make things better.

Overview of Competency Attainment (through the Bachelor’s level)

Essential Competencies & Foundational Studies

Competency refers to a particular knowledge and skill set acquired through learning, practice, and experience – there are five Essential Competencies prioritized at APU (stated above) which are integrated throughout the curriculum for all undergraduate degree programs.

Foundational Studies are a group of courses that introduce the Essential Competencies and are required of all APU undergraduates.  Students continue to develop competencies beyond the Foundational Studies in Major requirements.

Foundational Studies – Requirements & Objectives

Foundational Studies comprise 32-40 credits for Bachelor’s level degrees, and 28-32 credits for Associate level degrees.

EC Written Communication (4)
Completion of (or placement beyond) WRIT 10100 (AA), WRIT 20100 (BA/BS)
• Develop soundly-reasoned and well-supported arguments
• Retrieve information and synthesize it for research purposes
• Utilize ethical documentation and citation conventions
• Adapt written communication and implement stylistic conventions appropriate for particular audience, discipline, or professional context

EC Presentation & Media Literacy (3-4)
Completion of 10000-20000 level COMM course
• Develop and practice presentational skills appropriate for various contexts and purposes, informational, organizational, and interpersonal
• Critique communication dynamics that are structured through 21st century, networked technologies
• Assess and improve individual communication skills

CT Critical Thinking (3-4)
Completion of 10000-20000 level CRIT course
• Compare ideological, polarized, or alternative systems of thought, assessing any uncritical dogmas or over-simplified tenets
• Examine methods of reasoning, testing them for relevant criteria, fallacies, and standards in relation to problems or questions
• Apply methods of reasoning within disciplinary, professional, and organizational contexts, and analyze embedded perspectives or biases of the contexts themselves

CT Computation (3-4)
Completion of (or placement beyond) MT 10100 or BAM 10500
• Apply mathematic knowledge and logic to solve problems
• Utilize appropriate computational approaches to quantify data and information

CH Intellectual Traditions *** (4)
Completion of 10000-20000 level PH or HI course, or LS 20100
• Examine critically and appreciatively discourse from philosophical and historical traditions
• Develop reflective and informed responses to intellectual traditions noting the role of such traditions in shaping collective consciousness

CH Creative Endeavors *** (4)
Completion of 10000-20000 level HUM course , or LS 20200
• Examine critically and appreciatively human expression through literature, arts, and other creative works
• Develop reflective and informed responses to creative endeavors noting the role of creativity and creative works in society

CH Intercultural & Spiritual Understandings *** (3-4)
Completion of 10000-20000 level CS or RS course
• Examine comparatively expressions of religious , spiritual, and cultural worldviews, with attention to heritage, values, and identity formation
• Develop reflective and informed responses to spiritual and cultural traditions, honoring diversity of worldviews

SI Biological/Physical Scientific Inquiry (4) (can be designated or double-counted in Major)
Completion of course focused on the natural sciences with applied learning lab, from:
SC 10000, 11000, 12000, 12500, 14000, 15000, 15500, 16100, 16200, 17000, 17100, 17200, 21000, 21500
• Observe and document nature in a systematic and integrative approach
• Pose and test hypothesis through applied learning laboratory setting
• Utilize recognized formats to communicate scientific observations in written and oral presentations

SI Social/Behavioral Scientific Inquiry (3-4) (can be designated or double-counted in Major)
Completion of course focused on social or behavioral sciences, from:  ANS 20100, BA 26000, BA 26500, LS 20300, PY 10100, PY 20200, PY 21500, PY 22100, PY 22400, PY 23000, PY 23500, PY 24200, PY 26000, SS 20103, SUS 11000, SUS 21000
• Investigate how humans form and are formed by society
• Explore core concepts and analytic frameworks used to understand the dynamics of human behavior and societal formations
• Distinguish between qualitative and quantitative methods of human and social research

EE Social Responsibility (2)
Completion of LS 10200
• Explore fundamental questions about the nature of life and what makes it worth living
• Examine and compare major ethical theories in order to investigate the nature of moral judgments
• Evaluate one’s own personal ethical positions

EE Personal Responsibility (1-2) (can be designated or double counted in Major)
Completion of 1-2 credit 10000-20000 level course focused on personal well being from OS, PE, BAM 20400, MAR 11000, MAR 24000
• Set goals
• Develop strategies for resilience
• Attend to personal wellness

[ ***For AA degrees, students are required to take CH Intercultural & Spiritual Understandings, and then choose one course from CH Intellectual Traditions or CH Creative Endeavors.]

Associate of Arts - Overview

Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science - Overview