Here Comes a New Core

By Jenni De Jong

Incoming freshmen may have something to look forward to next year.

A new version of the core curriculum was decided by faculty vote on Monday, January 31.

Current students will have the choice to graduate under the core that was in place when they entered college, or to graduate under a new core if they can fulfill its requirements.

“The new proposal is based on what was good in the old core,” said Dr. Cliff Foreman, chair of the curriculum committee. “It’s not a complete revamping; it’s sort of an adjustment.”

Courses such as Speech, Global Trends, CHOW Art & Music, and the Intercultural Experience have been eliminated from the core, though they will still be offered and will satisfy new distribution requirements.

New distribution requirements in fine arts and non-Western culture have been established, and the humanities requirement has been replaced with one for literature and philosophy.

Certain classes will be designated with “D,” “S,” and “W” prefixes and altered to meet the criteria for each letter. “D” courses will involve significant exposure to cultural diversity, while “S” and “W” courses will introduce students to speaking and writing standards within their discipline by requiring an oral presentation or scholarly writing in class.
CHOW will be revamped to maintain a better focus on the history behind the ideas it covers, and Christ and Culture will rotate between a civic engagement emphasis and a popular culture emphasis. Microcomputer Applications will be brought down to 2 credits, and there will be more reasonable opportunities to test out of the course.

The new core may still change before the college sees it instituted in an academic bulletin. “Intercultural Experience or Speech could be put back in, for example, and if that occurs, the committee might recommend to the faculty that those classes replace parts of the core, like “S” or “D” classes,” said Foreman. Allowances have been made within the proposal for other changes as well.

The second part of the curriculum committee’s proposal, which would institute a new core oversight committee to develop and evaluate the core curriculum year-round, is still being discussed.