Core Learning Goals 

The Core Curriculum focuses on the learning goals that form the core of a modern liberal arts education at a leading comprehensive 21st century public research university.

For a student-facing list of Core goals with links to courses satisfying each goal, visit the Office of Advising and Academic Services website here. For information on Core Curriculum assessment, assessment plans, and rubrics, please click here.

 

Upon completion of the Core Curriculum students will be able to: 

 

Contemporary Challenges [CCD;CCO] 

Students must take two degree credit-bearing courses and meet at least one goal in both CCD and CCO as followscontemporary challenges

Diversities and Social Inequalities [CCD] (3 credits) 

Students must take one degree credit-bearing course that meets one or both of these goals.

  • CCD-1. Analyze the degree to which forms of human differences and stratifications among social groups shape individual and group experiences of, and perspectives on, contemporary issues. Such differences and stratifications may include race, language, religion, ethnicity, country of origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic status, abilities, or other social distinctions and their intersections.
  • CCD-2. Analyze contemporary social justice issues and unbalanced social power systems.

Our Common Future [CCO] 

Students must take one degree credit-bearing course that meets one or both of these goals.

  • CCO-1. Analyze a contemporary global issue from a multidisciplinary perspective.
  • CCO-2. Analyze the relationship that science and technology have to a contemporary social issue.

 

Areas of Inquiry areasofinquiry

Natural Sciences [NS] (6 credits) 

  • NS-1. Understand and apply basic principles and concepts in the physical or biological sciences.
  • NS-2. Explain and be able to assess the relationship among assumptions, method, evidence, arguments, and theory in scientific analysis.

Historical and Social Analysis [HST;SCL] (6 credits) 

Students must take two degree credit-bearing courses and meet both HST and SCL, as follows: 

Historical and Analysis [HST] (3 credits) 

 Students must take one degree credit-bearing course that meets one or both of these goals.

  • HST-1. Explain the development of some aspect of a society or culture over time.
  • HST-2. Employ historical reasoning to study human endeavors, using appropriate assumptions, methods, evidence, and arguments.

Social Analysis [SCL] (3 credits) 

Students must take one additional degree credit-bearing course that meets one or both of these goals.

  • SCL-1. Understand different theories about human culture, social identity, economic entities, political systems, and other forms of social organization.
  • SCL-2. Employ tools of social scientific reasoning to study particular questions or situations, using appropriate assumptions, methods, evidence, and arguments.

Arts and the Humanities [AH] (6 credits) 

Students must take two degree credit-bearing courses and meet at least two of these goals.

  • AHo. Examine critically philosophical and other theoretical issues concerning the nature of reality, human experience, knowledge, value, and/or cultural production.
  • AHp. Analyze arts and/or literatures in themselves and in relation to specific histories, values, languages, cultures, and technologies.
  • AHq. Understand the nature of human languages and their speakers.
  • AHr. Engage critically in the process of creative expression.

 

Cognitive Skills and Proceesescogprocesses

Writing and Communication [WCR;WCD] (9 credits) 

Students must take three degree credit-bearing courses, and meet both WCR and WCD as follows:

  • All students must take 01:355:101 or its equivalent.
  • Students must take one additional credit-bearing course focused on revision that meets this goal:
  • WCR. Communicate complex ideas effectively, in standard written English, to a general audience, and respond effectively to editorial feedback from peers, instructors, &/or supervisors through successive drafts & revision.
  • WCD. Communicate effectively in modes appropriate to a discipline or area of inquiry; evaluate and critically assess sources and use the conventions of attribution and citation correctly; and analyze and synthesize information and ideas from multiple sources to generate new insights.

Quantitative and Formal Reasoning [QQ;QR] (6 credits) 

Students must take two degree credit-bearing courses and meet both of these goals. 

  • QQ. Formulate, evaluate, and communicate conclusions and inferences from quantitative information. (includes various quantitative methods courses as well as 640 courses)
  • QR. Apply effective and efficient mathematical or other formal processes to reason and to solve problems. (includes 640 courses and formal reasoning courses)

 

Notes 

The Core Curriculum was revised by vote of the faculty in May 2018. The revised curriculum applies to students entering Fall 2019 or later. Please pdf click here (436 KB) for the prior Core Curriculum.

  • A single course may be used to meet more than one core requirement.
  • All courses must be credit-bearing, graded courses certified by the SAS Faculty as meeting core goals (i.e., E credit courses cannot be used to meet goals, nor can Pass/No Credit courses).
  • Generally, students will need to take 10 – 14 courses to complete the Core, some of which may also fulfill major or minor requirements.

Please note: School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) students also complete several additional SEBS-specific Core requirements.