case study 1: core curricula

Running head: CORE CURRUCULUM IN HIGHER EDUCATION 1

Core Curriculum in Higher Education: An Analysis of Five Colleges and Universities

Megan Segoshi

Loyola University Chicago

CORE CURRUCULUM IN HIGHER EDUCATION 2

Core Curriculum in Higher Education: An Analysis of Five Colleges and Universities

American colleges and universities typically require a core curriculum, also referred to as

general education requirements, which must be completed by undergraduate students as a degree

requirement. The core curricula of higher education institutions are generally developed in order

to provide students with foundational knowledge in a variety of different fields of study, to help

students choose a major or specialization, and to engage students in learning that will extend

beyond the university setting (University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009; Boston College,

2013). In examining the core curricula of various institutions, it is important to ask questions as

to their effectiveness and impact, including the benefits accorded to students after completing

them.

This paper examines, compares, and analyzes the core curricula required for graduation at

five colleges and universities: The University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst),

The City University of New York at Hunter (Hunter College), Fordham University (Fordham),

Boston College, and Harvard College (Harvard). Like most American colleges and universities,

all five of these schools offer a core curriculum, or general education requirements, that must be

completed by all of their undergraduate students regardless of major. For the purposes of this

paper, I will examine only those requirements that are mandatory for students who enter as first

year students, since transfer student requirements can vary greatly depending on the school and

the individual student. In the following sections I will present each schools core curriculum. I

will then provide a comparison of these curricula, finally concluding with a thorough analysis.


The Core Curriculum

UMass Amherst

UMass Amherst requires a minimum of eleven courses. Two of these courses must be in

writing one introductory level, and one advanced level, taken within the students major. They

require one course each in basic math and analytical reasoning. Two courses are required in the

sciences one in biological sciences, and one in physical sciences. Four more social world

courses must be completed within the fields of social sciences, history, and fine arts. Two of the

courses must be designed as either a United States Diversity course or a Global Diversity course,

which can be combined with their social world courses (University of Massachusetts Amherst,

2009). Finally, each student must complete an integrative experience course. This course may

be an experiential learning or civic engagement class, or a capstone or portfolio project. These

requirements are typical of large public universities, spanning across various fields in the liberal

arts and sciences, designed to provide students with a basis of knowledge in each of these areas

and help them choose a major.

Unique to UMass Amhersts general education requirements is the integrative

experience. Their general education website acknowledges that between completing general

education courses, major requirements, electives, and extracurricular activities, the educational

experience can become fragmented (University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009). The

integrative experience is intended to provide students with

a structured opportunity to look back on their early college learning

experiences, reflect upon and make connections between those earlier experiences

and the more advanced work in their major, and use their integrated learning to


prepare for the demands of the world beyond the University (University of

Massachusetts Amherst, 2009).

Hunter College

Like UMass Amherst, Hunter College is a large public university, and is part of the City

University System of New York (CUNY). Hunter College requires students to take two writing

courses, one biological or life science course, one scientific world course, and one math or

quantitative reasoning course. Hunter College also requires one course in creative expression, or

fine arts (Hunter College, 2015). Like UMass Amherst, Hunter College also requires one course

in United States Diversity, and one course in Global Diversity or World Cultures. Hunter

College describes its social sciences requirement as the individual in society, which requires

one course each in humanities and the social sciences (Hunter College, 2015).

Unlike any of the other colleges examined in this paper, Hunter College requires fourth

semester proficiency in a foreign language for all of its undergraduate students. This

requirement is unique to Hunter College even within the CUNY system, and separates it from

some of its other CUNY competitors (Hunter College, 2015). Like many other requirements,

though, some students may test out of foreign languages through AP tests or placement exams.

Fordham University

Fordhams liberal arts general education requirements are more extensive in comparison

to UMass Amherst and Hunter College. Fordham requires two courses in writing, one course

each in philosophy, faith and critical reason, literature, history, computational reasoning, social

sciences, fine arts, philosophical ethics, and theology. They require two courses in the natural

sciences, and some courses in foreign language depending on the students placement and

proficiency (Fordham University, n.d.). Like UMass Amherst and Hunter College, Fordham also


has United States and Global Diversity requirements, referred to as American Pluralism and

Global Studies, which may be combined with other courses. Rounding out Fordhams core

curriculum are a values seminar and an interdisciplinary capstone, to be completed within the

junior or senior year (Fordham University, n.d.).

Fordhams emphasis on theology, critical reason, and philosophy are certainly unique to

its liberal arts core curriculum, and are a reflection of its identity as a Jesuit institution. Also

consistent with a Jesuit education, Fordhams checklist of requirements guides students

carefully through which courses they should take at each stage of their education, while the

previously examined universities simply stated that they just need to be completed by graduation

(Fordham University, n.d.).

Boston College

Boston College is the smallest school examined in this paper, and also offers the smallest

core curriculum of the five institutions. It requires one course each in fine arts, math, cultural

diversity, literature, and writing. Two courses are required in history, philosophy, social

sciences, natural sciences, and theology (Boston College, 2013). Like Fordham, Boston College

is a Jesuit university and emphasizes philosophy and theology in its core curriculum. It provides

an extensive history of the development of its core curriculum, and thoroughly integrates the

Jesuit tradition into its rationale (Boston College, 2013).

Harvard College

Harvard College, the undergraduate division of Harvard University, has by far the most

unique core curriculum explored in this paper. Harvards core curriculum consists of one course

each in aesthetic and interpretive understanding, culture and belief, empirical and mathematical

reasoning, ethical reasoning, science of living systems, societies of the world, and the United


States in the world (Harvard College, 2015). Although these topics are not necessarily unique in

and of themselves, it is the courses that fulfill them that sets Harvard apart from the other

colleges and universities. Each course is designated as a general education requirement only;

that is, each course is designed specifically for the general education program, and doesnt also

serve as an introductory major course, as is the case at many other schools. The courses are

highly specialized and explicitly connect their content to real world, practical life experiences.

Examples of these courses are in the following section.

Like all of the other examined institutions except for Fordham, Harvard explains that all

of their general education courses should be completed by graduation. They suggest taking one

each semester, however, this is not required (Harvard College, 2015). The list of courses is

noticeably shorter than other institutions. This may be explained by the higher number of credits

attributed to each course at Harvard; with higher credit numbers, fewer actual courses are

required to attain graduation. Unlike other universities, Harvard does not have a writing

component in its general education courses, although it can be inferred that writing is an integral

part of the students education and is incorporated into their other courses.

Comparison

The colleges and universities examined in this paper all justify their core curricula by

explaining the importance of students gaining a diversity of knowledge, a well-rounded

education, and the ability to draw connections between various fields of study and the real world.

However, none of them are as explicit in making this connection as Harvard. This is readily

apparent in their general education course offerings. While most schools offer what is expected

(for example, intro to biology to complete a life sciences requirement, or intro to psychology

for a social sciences requirement), Harvards general education curriculum is clearly crafted to


engage students in a unique and practical learning experience. See Table 1 for examples of some

of their courses and the corresponding requirements they fill.

Table 1

Sample of Harvard General Education Requirements

General Education Requirement Course Title

Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding

Race, Gender, and Performance

Forbidden Romance in Modern China

Culture and Belief Madness and Medicine: Themes in the

History of Psychiatry

The History of the English Language

Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning Analyzing Politics

The Art of Numbers

Science of Living Systems Understanding Darwinism

The Origins of Knowledge

Science of the Physical Universe What is Life? From Quarks to Consciousness

Science of Cooking: from Haute Cuisine to

Soft Matter Science

Societies of the World The Two Koreas

Human Trafficking, Slavery, and Abolition in

the Modern World

United States in the World Men and Women in Public and Private: The

US in the 20th Century

American Food: A Global History


(Harvard College, 2015)

One identifier of engagement is the diversity offered within each requirement. As a lover of the

social sciences, I can easily find courses in empirical and mathematical reasoning in their

requirements that excite me. I hope that the opposite would also be true. Whereas, when I was a

student at UMass Amherst I could hardly find one science course, let alone two, that I found

interesting.

Analysis

It is important to note the differences between each of the schools core curricula by the

type of institution. While the large, public universities examined here offer similar requirements,

the two Jesuit institutions emphasize theology and philosophy. Harvard, a private, elite liberal

arts college, offers the most diverse and intriguing general education courses, and has an entire

program dedicated to them. While reading through Harvards course catalog initially made me

wish to go back in time and do everything I could to get into Harvard as a first year student, I

then came to the more troubling realization that this exciting, unique, and engaging curriculum

was reserved only for those designated as elite. Knowing that being accepted to an Ivy League

university is a privilege most often afforded to legacy admits, the wealthy, and ergo the White,

future research should explore why it is that Harvard is able to offer such a diverse array of

general education courses and other universities are not. It seems as though the courses offered

at Harvard are not only tied to the students interests and lives, but are also so specific that they

likely cater to the interests and lives of the faculty, as well. In a less in-depth examination of

some other elite universities, including Stanford University and Princeton University, it appears

that other elite schools share programs similar to Harvards. Other elite schools like Amherst


College have eliminated their core curriculum entirely, in favor of allowing students to freely

explore fields that are unrelated to their major.

As explained by Fink (2003), a curriculum that interests and engages both students and

faculty, is more likely to lead to significant learning. Contrarily, faculty who are teaching

students who are not engaged or interested in the topic are probably less likely to be engaged

teachers, resulting in less learning (Fink, 2003). For example, when I was a first year student at

UMass Amherst I enrolled in a course called My DNA, a science course that fulfilled a general

education requirement for non-science majors. On the first day of class, the professor explained

that he knew that half of us would stop showing up and therefore over-enrolled the class, and that

course material would all be posted online so we didnt need to come. However, this wasnt an

online course. Essentially, his anticipation of disengaged learners made him a disengaged

professor, and lo and behold this course turned out to be my lowest grade in college. Harvards

core curriculum allows for professors to design courses based on their own interests and

expertise, thus engaging them from the beginning. Professors who are stuck teaching large,

introductory lecture courses for which the syllabus is already set in stone have less agency in the

design of the course, and therefore in their students learning (Fink, 2003; Bransford, 1999).

Both UMass Amherst and Fordham required students to complete a capstone as a general

education requirement. At UMass Amherst this course is intended to serve as an integrated

learning experience that helps students reflect on the ways in which their learning, across their

entire UMass experience, has helped them develop knowledge and skills necessary in the real

world. Fordhams capstone experience, described as an interdisciplinary capstone, shares a

similar goal with UMass Amhersts capstone but is intended to integrate knowledge and learning

from two advanced disciplinary courses, and is overall less encompassing than UMass


Amhersts. However, both of these opportunities acknowledge the fragmented nature of general

education requirements and serve the purpose of engaging students in making meaning from

their education (Bransford, 1999). These culminating experiences align with what Bransford

(1999) would refer to as progressive formalization, or the deliberate painting of an overall

picture of the students education (p. 139).

Conclusion

In conclusion, most of the institutions of higher education examined in this paper set

forth a core curriculum with the goals of providing students with foundational knowledge and a

well-rounded education, and engaging them in their learning. However, with the exceptions of

Harvard, UMass Amherst, and Fordham, it is not clear how the courses offered to fulfill general

education requirements explicitly do so. Further in-depth analysis will be necessary to determine

the long-term utility, practicality, necessity, and impact of general education requirements.

Furthermore, it is important to note that without a comprehensive examination of curriculum that

includes an analysis of major requirements and extracurricular activities or requirements, no

finite determinations can be made about the merit of the core curricula offered by the schools in

this paper.

The core curricula developed by these institutions are also likely to target the traditional

college-aged student who are enrolled in a four year, on-campus program. As colleges and

universities see changes in the type of students they enroll, though, curriculum should also shift

to engage this new population (Nilson, 2010). Should a 35-year old father of two who works full

time still be required to take a US History course for his degree in statistics? How necessary or

useful is this requirement for him? I believe that questions like this ought to be taken into


consideration as higher education enters into a new phase with different students, different

modes of teaching, and new challenges in engaging learners (Nilson, 2010).


References

Boston College. (2013, May 5). Core curriculum Boston College. Retrieved from

http://www.bc.edu/offices/avp/core/coure-courses.html

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.) (1999). How People Learn: Brain,

Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Fink, L.D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to

developing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Fordham University. (n.d.). Core curriculum, Fordham University. Retrieved from

http://www.fordham.edu/info/20317/core_curriculum

Harvard College. (2015). Courses & program in general education. Retrieved from

http://www.generaleducation.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k37826&tabgroupid=i

cb.tabgroup92169

Hunter College. (2015). CUNY Common core (CCCR). Retrieved from

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/academics/hunter-core-requirement/im-a-freshman-starting-

at-hunter-in-fall-2013-or-later

Nilson, L.B. (2010). Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors.

San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

University of Massachusetts Amherst. (2009). UMass Amherst: General education. Retrieved

from http://www.umass.edu/gened/forStudents/indexForStudents.html

case study 1: core curricula

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