Essential Learning Outcomes (Core Abilities)

At Maharishi International University students gain the knowledge and skills they need for professional success, personal fulfillment, and responsible citizenship in a rapidly changing world.

All undergraduates acquire nine Essential Learning Outcomes by the time they graduate. They have abundant opportunities to exercise and strengthen these skills throughout their time here, building the foundation for a successful professional and personal life.

Our students have a unique advantage in developing these skills, namely the inner growth they gain through Consciousness-Based education. By directly experiencing the field of pure consciousness, pure creative intelligence — the source of all knowledge, total natural law — students grow in creativity and intelligence, happiness and peace. They feel increasingly at home with all knowledge and enjoy growing support of natural law for fulfilling their own desires and creating a better world.

ESSENTIAL LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Development of consciousness: Know your Self — and act from the deepest level of your perception, thinking, feeling, and being.
2. Health: Develop your physical, mental, and emotional health.
3. Holistic thinking:  Connect ideas and actions to a greater whole, to universal principles, and to inner experience.
4. Creativity:  Combine ideas, experience, and expertise imaginatively to generate new and meaningful ways of thinking, expressing, and doing.
5. Critical thinking: Reason with logic and evidence, identify assumptions, and consider other perspectives fairly.
6. Communication: Listen, speak, read, and write effectively in a variety of contexts and media.
7. Problem solving: Design and implement strategies to address challenges, achieve goals, or resolve conflicts.
8. Teamwork and leadership: Cultivate a constructive and inclusive team process to envision and achieve goals.
9. Local and global citizenship: Take responsibility for elevating the quality of life for all people and for preserving and regenerating the natural world.

1 – DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Graduates are able to. . .

Display improvements in perception, thinking, feeling, and overall growth of consciousness.

These improvements are verified through both subjective experience and objective measures — through self-reported experiences in and outside of Transcendental Meditation practice, measures on the Brain Integration Progress Report, and behavioral indicators of mental and physical wellness.

2 – HEALTH

Graduates  . . .

Display improved physical and mental health.

This outcome is measured through a standardized self-report instrument developed by the Duke University Medical Center.

• Assessment: 17-item Duke Health Profile (The DUKE)

3 – HOLISTIC THINKING

Graduates are able to . . .

Apply unifying principles within and across disciplines to synthesize ideas, integrate divergent perspectives, and understand what they have learned in light of their own consciousness.

This outcome is assessed in the Senior Project, where students reflect on their work using the integrating principles that emerged in the process.

• Assessment: American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) Integrative Thinking VALUE Rubric

4 – CREATIVITY

Graduates are able to . . .

Combine or synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original, imaginative ways characterized by innovation, divergent thinking, and risk taking.

This outcome can be measured as a dimension of any product which requires originality and imagination, going beyond what is given and creating something new.

• Assessment: AACU Creative Thinking VALUE Rubric

5 – CRITICAL THINKING

Graduates are able to . . .

Evaluate a thesis or judgment on the basis of logic, reliable evidence, ethical values, and openness to alternative assumptions and points of view.

This outcome is measured in classroom or standardized tests of critical thinking, scientific reasoning, and logical analysis; classroom debates and presentations; and research papers or other writing where students analyze a situation and argue for a position.

• Assessment: A campus-developed profile, including a 10-point rubric.

6 – COMMUNICATION

Graduates are able to . . .

Listen to and express, ideas, feelings, and information in speech, text, and other media.

This outcome is measured through classroom or standardized measures of oral presentations, in-class writing, reports, research papers, and multi-media presentations.

• Assessment: AACU: Oral Communication and Written Communication VALUE Rubrics

7 – PROBLEM SOLVING

Graduates are able to . . .

Design and implement a strategy to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal. In mathematics and the sciences this goal is often practical or knowledge-oriented, in the arts often expressive or aesthetic.

This outcome is measured through any challenge to students where there is no standard formula or protocol to be applied. It is assessed by analyzing the process students apply together with the quality of the end product.

• Assessment: AACU: Problem Solving VALUE Rubric

8 – TEAMWORK AND LEADERSHIP

Graduates are able to . . .

Contribute to a group task while facilitating the contributions of diverse teammates in a constructive team climate.

This outcome is assessed in any group assignment where teammates evaluate each other’s contributions or where the teacher observes and rates individual contributions and group interaction.

• Assessment: AACU Teamwork VALUE Rubric

9 – LOCAL AND GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

Graduates are able to . . .

Act in the local arena — with a global perspective — to address world economic, cultural, social, and environmental challenges.

This outcome is assessed in any practical service or problem-solving activity or simulation where students’ thoughts and actions affect the wider world.

• Assessment: AACU Global Learning VALUE Rubric