General Education & Foundations FAQ

Belmont's general education curriculum is now called Belmont Foundations. The name reflects Belmont's Christian commitment to wisdom, creativity, character and purpose, with an emphasis on academic rigor and engaged learning. This better prepares you to live in a complex, interconnected world.

A few highlights of what's changed:

• No more Interdisciplinary Learning Communities (ILC) requirement
• No more Junior Cornerstone Seminar (JCS) requirement
• No more standalone Wellness course requirement. Wellness content now lives in First Year Foundations and WELL Core.
• General education is streamlined into a 12-course Foundations curriculum, plus additional hours for Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science students
• Four renamed multidisciplinary areas: Foundations in Humanities, Foundations in Social Context, Foundations in Creative Arts and Foundations in Scientific Discovery
• Expanded Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy options, including statistics
• Second Year Writing (formerly Third Year Writing) moves to your second year
• The religion sequence becomes one shared pathway: Encountering the Bible in your first year and God and the Good Life in your third year

It depends on your expected graduation date:

• Graduating in December 2026 or May 2027: You'll stay on the BELL Core requirements currently shown in DegreeWorks. Nothing changes for you.
• Graduating in August 2027 or later: You'll be moved automatically to the Foundations curriculum this summer. You don't need to do anything to make this switch — it happens on your record.

If you've already completed BELL Core courses and will be graduating after June 1, 2027, those courses will carry over to satisfy the equivalent Foundations requirement:

*Course menu. **Some majors may still require a disciplinary capstone in addition to the Senior Year Symposium.

If you're graduating in May 2027 and still need one of these to complete your BELL Core requirements, go ahead and register for it to complete during the Spring 2027 semester.

Otherwise, these remain excellent course options through Spring 2027, which is the last semester they'll be offered as ILC, Wellness or JCS sections. For example, if you find an ILC that covers both a Social Science and Humanities requirement you still need, take it — team-teaching is a great way to learn. The same goes for Third-Year Religion, Junior Cornerstone, Wellness and 1-hour Activity courses offered in Spring 2027.

Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science students will still have additional requirements beyond the core Foundations courses, but they will look a little different:

Bachelor of Arts — 15 additional hours

Bachelor of Science — 15 additional hours

For students transitioning to Foundations, previously earned general education credits and courses required for the major will continue to be evaluated and applied appropriately within the degree plan. For example, courses that remain major requirements, such as ECO 2210 or ECO 2220 for certain programs, will still need to be completed if they have not already been taken.

For all other degree programs, previously earned credits and major-required courses are being evaluated and appropriately applied within each student's plan of study additional requirements are being shifted. Your advisor will help you understand how Foundations requirements apply to your specific degree program.

For two reasons. First, your major isn't all you need to know to be an educated person or a responsible citizen. The humanities and arts help you understand what it means to be human, the social sciences help you understand how to live and work with others, and the natural sciences help you understand how the material world works.

Second, your major isn't all you need to understand or effectively use what you learn in it. No matter your major, using it well requires some sense of what humans are, how they live and work together and how the world works. Your major may go deep on a small part of that — but you need breadth around it to use that depth properly.

No. Effective June 1, 2027, all students will complete the shared Foundations curriculum. Not all majors have the same additional requirements beyond.. Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees have additional hours on top of that (see above), and some majors also require specific course choices within Foundations because they are especially useful for students in that major — see the next question.

Technical requirements are choices within Foundations that your major requires you to make. Most Foundations areas are general — they require a course in a particular area (say, Foundations in Social Context) without specifying which one. Sometimes, though, a department requires a specific course within that area because it's especially useful for students in that major. Those are called technical requirements.

Maybe. Some courses or requirements can't be satisfied through transferred credit, whether from another college, Advanced Placement or another source. First Year Foundations and Senior Year Symposium are the least likely to have equivalent transfer credit, since they're built around Belmont's own community and formation experience. Additionally, prior religion courses are evaluated for equivalency to determine if they meet Belmont’s requirements and learning objectives.

Your advisor can help you determine which credits are (or could be) equivalent and can help you contact the Foundations Team to get them approved.

Some courses are designed to be taken at specific points in your Belmont journey. Students are expected to complete First Year Foundations, First Year Writing and Encountering the Bible during their first year. Speaking and Listening is typically completed within the first two years, and Second Year Writing is designed to build on First Year Writing. God and the Good Life requires completion of REL 1010 and at least 48 earned credit hours, helping ensure students have enough academic and life experience to engage its questions of faith, meaning and purpose. Students who enter Belmont with transfer, dual enrollment, AP or IB credit may reach this milestone earlier. The Senior Year Symposium is completed during a student's final 30 credit hours.

Outside of those milestones and prerequisites, students have flexibility in when they complete most Foundations requirements. Academic advisors will help students build a plan that fits their degree program and keeps them on track for graduation.

Many study abroad programs offer classes that count toward Foundations distributional requirements (the multidisciplinary Foundations areas). Check with your study abroad advisor to confirm which of your remaining requirements a specific program can fulfill.

Yes and no. Global Honors students don't take the standard Foundations curriculum — the Global Honors curriculum is their general education. Depending on their major, they may still need to take specific Foundations courses to satisfy technical requirements.

Start with your academic advisor. You can also reach out to:

• Student Success and Flourishing / GPS
• Office of the Registrar
• Dr. Amy Hodges Hamilton, Director of Undergraduate Core Curriculum

No. December 2026 and May 2027 degree candidates' graduation requirements will not change.

Foundations general education requirements will be effective June 1, 2027, pending approval by SACSCOC.

Belmont wants students to have a common or shared experience that promotes the development of a well-rounded individual by encouraging learning outside the classroom and lifelong learning.

The standalone Wellness course requirement is going away. Wellness content is being incorporated into First Year Foundations and the broader WELL Core program instead, so you'll still build the same foundation in physical and holistic wellness — just without a separate course to schedule. One-hour Activity courses will continue to be offered as free electives.

Attendance at most convocation events applies to your account instantly. Community Well-Being Through Service credit can take up to six weeks.

You can check your WELL Core credits online on the BruinLink page. Click on your account (first initial of your first name) in the top right corner. Paths, Event History and Co-Curricular Transcript will have your information. Note: WELL Core credit cannot be viewed on the CORQ App.

No. We do not move credits from one category to another. Each category is distinct, with its own nature and purpose. Just as you cannot use extra math classes to meet the humanities requirement, you cannot use extra credits earned in one WELL Core category to meet the requirement in another category.

No. If an event is canceled, students cannot get credit for the event. Additional events are available online through the WELL Core course on Blackboard.

If you are more than ten minutes late to a live WELL Core event, you may not be admitted and get credit for attending the event.

No. The event organizer has the obligation to not allow more students in once the event space is full. Sometimes, attendance is substantially larger than anticipated and it can even become simply impossible to accommodate everyone who wishes to attend. Priority is given based on the order of arrival; first come, first served.

Students receive Community WELL-Being through Service credit by submitting their hours in GetConnected. For more information on how to submit those hours: http://getconnected.belmont.edu/community-service-convocation-landing-page/.

Note: If you don’t see your hours from GetConnected posted on your BruinLink WELL Core account, send an email to well-core@belmont.edu requesting they be added to your account.

No. WELL Core is a graduation requirement. Most Belmont students have jobs, family obligations and/or emerging professional obligations and opportunities. The overwhelming majority also have little difficulty in completing the WELL Core program. WELL Core should be completed before your semester at Belmont USA, your nursing clinical, your student teaching, etc. Plan accordingly.

Yes, under the new requirements, students would be allowed to obtain WELL Core credit for studying abroad

No. WELL Core credits are earned through WELL Core approved events only, noting that there is an exception for the Adult Degree Program.

Kind of. All WELL Core events much be sponsored by a Belmont faculty or staff member. But if you have a good idea for a WELL Core event, consider approaching a faculty or staff member who might be willing to sponsor it.

Spiritual well-being is an important part of life for all human beings, as is highlighted by the diversity of topics explored by speakers in the Spiritual Well-Being (SWB) category. In fact, the vast majority of events in the SWB category are not inherently doctrinaire, but address issues of universal concern.

Yes. Almost every semester there are students who do not graduate for no reason other than failing to complete WELL Core. Students in that situation may not walk at commencement, though they may attend WELL Core events in subsequent semesters (without paying tuition). As WELL Core events are also available online, students should have ample opportunity to meet their WELL Core requirements.

If you have questions about WELL Core, you may email well-core@belmont.edu. Be sure to include your name and BU ID along with your question or request.