The Post-Secondary Education Articulation Act charges the Higher Education Department (HED) with establishing a statewide model of General Education.

A student enrolling for first-year or second-year study at a New Mexico institution and wishing to prepare for possible transfer into a degree program at another institution is advised to take these courses during their freshman and sophomore years. Because many degree programs require specific general education courses as part of the program requirements, students should consider the degree requirements of the institution to which they are transferring when determining which courses would best meet their needs. General education requirements for Teacher Education or Early Childhood Education are built into the respective degree plans. All students are encouraged to work with advisors as they develop their degree plan.

The two General Education models adopted by New Mexico are as follows:

For Associate and Bachelor degrees

31 credit hours (excluding Associate of Applied Science Degrees)

For Associate of Applied Science Degrees

15 credit hours

Each university in the state is allowed to choose the distribution of the remaining Flexible 9 to 10 credits. The ENMU system has chosen the following as required for an associate degree from any of its campuses:

The “Flexible Three” can only be met in an AAS degree by using a course coded with the prefix of FLEX (on the New Mexico State General Education list of approved General Education courses for Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell). For its AAS degrees, ENMU-Roswell will determine its general education requirements as part of each degree. Please consult the degree plans to ensure appropriate course choices. Students who complete the entire block of general education requirements for a designated certificate or degree at one institution will be able to transfer those credits as a block to any New Mexico Institution to meet the receiving institution’s general education requirements, whether or not the courses in the flexible nine (three) requirements of the receiving institution.

Therefore, we, along with most other institutions in the state, encourage students to complete all of their general education requirements at one institution whenever possible for maximum transfer efficiency.

General Education Philosophy Statement

The general education curriculum of Eastern New Mexico University Roswell is designed to

• Prepare graduates for a lifetime of learning and responsible citizenship;

• Provide for the study of a broad and interrelated spectrum of subjects beyond the student’s chosen field; and

• Help students develop analytical and communication skills together with a sense of social, ethical, and cultural values applicable to life.

General Education Mission at Eastern New Mexico University – Roswell

Through course and campus experiences, ENMU-Roswell students develop skills and knowledge necessary for academic, career, personal, and civic success. The curriculum provides students the foundation to create meaningful lives as contributors to their local communities and throughout the interconnected world. Students will complete courses across the following core disciplines: communications, mathematics, science, social and behavioral sciences, humanities, and the fine and creative arts.

To promote lifelong learning, ENMU-Roswell provides opportunities to develop knowledge, skills, and values under the guidance of the following General Education Learning Outcomes:

Communication: Students will demonstrate effective communication skill by being able to:

• Identify audience, context, and purpose of written, oral, and/or digital communications.

• Analyze claims in a variety of written texts, media, and images.

• Construct well-supported arguments in a variety of formats.

• Create clear, well organized, and mechanically correct written, oral, or visual presentations.

 Quantitative Reasoning: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the language of mathematics and its real-world applications by being able to:

• Express quantitative information symbolically, graphically, and in written and/or oral language.

• Identify appropriate processes and accurately perform measurements and calculations.

• Interpret, analyze, and critique quantitative information or arguments.

• Estimate the reasonableness of conclusions in real-world contextual problems.

 Critical Thinking: Students will demonstrate critical thinking skills by being able to:

• Form logical arguments by interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing multiple perspectives, experiences, assumptions, and evidence.

• Develop reasoned solutions to problems by evaluating issues, ideas, facts, and inferences.

• Make ethical, creative, and informed conclusions by gathering and using evidence and applying reasoning.

 Information & Digital Literacy: Students will demonstrate I & D literacy by being able to:

• Determine the credibility of a source utilizing indicators of authority and purpose (such as publication type, author’s credentials, intentions and potential bias).

• Navigate and utilize various digital research tools to locate relevant sources that address their inquiry.

• Credit or cite sources correctly and ethically.

• Engage in an ongoing process of forming questions and identifying gaps in their knowledge related to a particular subject matter.

 Social & Personal Responsibility: Students will begin to develop a sense of global awareness, cultural competence, and civic responsibility by being able to:

• Identify the historical, cultural, and socioeconomic perspectives of living in a global society.

• Understand diverse cultural perspectives and demonstrate strategies to navigate social and cultural relationships.

• Practice community engagement that addresses social justice, environmental responsibility and cultural diversity.

• Demonstrate collaboration and teamwork skills based on individual strengths, mutual accountability, and shared values.

These outcomes support the Eastern New Mexico University – Roswell Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILO) of inquiry, communication, collaboration, and community and will produce graduates who are successful in their further education, careers, personal lives, and civic engagement in a democratic society.

The outcomes also support the General Education Skills outcomes designated by the New Mexico General Education Task Force, which set a goal for all general education courses to include the development of skills through the methods in which content is delivered. The taskforce determined the need for skills inclusion and assessment after consideration of and deliberation about the need for power skills indicated by employers across the state and by institutional observations that students who had completed general education coursework in different programs across the state received varying degrees of competency in skill acquisition.

The following timeline indicates the General Education Assessment Plan commencing in the fall of 2019. The timeline will repeat every four years. 

 *Skills 2 and 3 are dependent on each specific general education course, which is why they are not specifically identified. All general education courses must address Critical Thinking, which is why it is the first skill to be assessed.

New Mexico Common Course Numbering System (NMCCNS)

New Mexico colleges and universities are in transition to a Common Course Numbering System (NMCCNS), designed to improve transfer and articulation of courses between New Mexico’s public and tribal higher education institutions. The NMCCNS uses four letters for the subject code and four or five digits for the course number. Currently, the NMCCNS includes all lower division academic courses offered at New Mexico's public higher education institutions. New disciplines, including career technical disciplines, may be added to the common course numbering system after convening of discipline specific faculty to review and identify equivalent courses. Commonly numbered courses have the same:

1. Prefix

2. Number

3. Course name

4. Course description

5. Student learning outcomes – consistent among New Mexico institutions with learning outcomes, as defined in the New Mexico Common Course Catalog.

ENMU-Roswell will be in transition to the NMCCNS over an unspecified period of time; therefore, the college catalog, student course schedules and transcripts may reflect a combination of new numbers and numbers that are currently assigned to courses, effective in past years.

For more information regarding the New Mexico Common Course Numbering System, and to access the crosswalk, please refer to the NM Higher Education Department website at http://www.hed.state.nm.us/

Student Responsibility

While general education courses are designed to broaden the base of student knowledge, degree plans for ENMU-Roswell and other New Mexico institutions often designate specific courses that meet both general education requirements and degree requirements, thus saving students from accumulating a broad range of courses that count as required courses for general education but only as electives in the degree. A degree plan (MAP - My Academic Plan) developed with an advisor during the first semester will help students achieve maximum efficiency in their coursework. Planning for meeting all requirements efficiently is, ultimately, the student’s responsibility.

ENMU Senate Bill 77: The Pilot Project

In 2020–21, leaders from Higher Education institutions in southeastern New Mexico worked with legislative leaders from New Mexico to develop a pilot project that supports improved enrollment and transfer between community colleges in the region and ENMU. Senator Gay Kernan (Hobbs, New Mexico) sponsored legislation that ultimately became Senate Bill 77. The bill passed during the 2021 regular session of the New Mexico Legislature and was signed into law by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on April 5, 2021 (New Mexico Statute 21-1-48).

The members of this collaborative are long-standing partners in delivering educational opportunities to New Mexicans. They look forward to increasing these opportunities for the citizens of eastern New Mexico.

You can click on this link to access the transfer partnerships between the Roswell campus and ENMU-Portales.