Institutional Learning Outcomes
Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) represent the knowledge, skills and attitudes that all University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma students are expected to acquire upon completion of their degree from USAO.
For more than a century the university’s mission has remained steadfast and consistent with its original motto, “Not for livelihood, but for life.” We value the qualities instilled by the liberal arts and offer the public a distinctive and accessible education that combines an interdisciplinary core curriculum with superior instruction in major fields of study. USAO's core belief states that the best path to a purposeful and meaningful life is an education that integrates knowledge from many disciplines to equip students for the 21st century. Purpose is expressed by tangible outcomes that benefit the people and communities our students engage. Meaning is measured internally through self-evaluation of personal growth, fulfillment, and quality of life. USAO students are lifelong learners who reason, relate, adapt, innovate, lead, and communicate ethically throughout their lives. We are Oklahoma’s public liberal arts college.
Contributes to a life of purpose
Instruction in the Discipline
Students receive rigorous instruction in their major field of study and demonstrate disciplinary proficiency.
Interdisciplinary Values
Students engage in scholarship as civil dialogue between unique individuals and disciplines and acquire broad knowledge and experience in the arts, humanities, mathematics, science, and social sciences.
Skills of Lifelong Learners
Students practice effective and ethical communication, research, creative problem-solving, and scientific reasoning.
Quality of Character
Students recognize and seize the opportunity to act as informed, productive, and intellectually mature global citizens.
Contributes to a life of meaning
Instruction in the Discipline
Students study examples of disciplinary fluency, learn to recognize excellence, and develop a plan to achieve mastery.
Interdisciplinary Values
Students discover the advantages of intellectual curiosity and diversity of perspective while they gain empathy and appreciation for other ideas, cultures, and beliefs.
Skills of Lifelong Learners
Students create original work that exhibits their scholarship, accept critical response, and understand that success requires failure, revision, and growth.
Quality of Character
Students pursue education as their goal and develop integrity, responsibility, tenacity, teamwork, charity, and leadership.