<p>Why have many schools done away with them? Do you think it's a good idea to have them or not?</p>
<p>Are there any top schools that still have a core curriculum?</p>
<p>Columbia and U. Chicago.</p>
<p>Yes, for lots of reasons I'll elaborate in a bit.</p>
<p>But first, I think it's important to sort out often conflated terms. For argument's sake, let's call them "distribution requirements" and "core."</p>
<p>Core: implies that the course is focused on the Great Books. (Part of the reason Core is unpopular, I imagine, is that there is a lot of controversy over the "Great Books" and their tendency to exclude non-Western and non-male lines of thought). I would argue, though, that there's no formal definition of a "Great Book," and works by Betty Friedan and Confucius are as "great" as works by Plato and Aristotle. Some schools have retained the "dead white guys" as part of core more than others.</p>
<p>Distribution requirements are a set of, well, distribution requirements. The difference between a core science class and a distribution science requirement would be the difference between reading Ptolemy and Harvey and "Rocks for Jocks," or the difference between reading Jane Austen and "Physics for Poets"</p>
<p>I'm against them (although Chicago was tied for my first choice...go figure). I'm against distribution requirements too, for that matter. </p>
<p>I had math through linear algebra, yet I still had to take two math courses to fulfill Duke's math requirement. What a Classics major is going to do with diff eq's, I don't know. :rolleyes: I also had to take an extra/pointless semester of German to fulfill the foreign language requirement because apparently Egyptian is not considered a foreign language. :confused:</p>
<p>By my definitions, the only part of Chicago's distribution requirements that count as core (am I confusing you yet?) are its humanities, social sciences, and civilizations sequences. Unlike Columbia's core, which breaks down its categories similarly, Chicago students have options in terms of how they want to approach their hum, sosc, and civ requirements. </p>
<p>Also by my definitions, I believe that what Harvard calls "core" would not satisfy what I call "core," though I could be wrong on that one. I do know that a lot of schools tend to call distribution requirements "core," and if not Harvard, I know the University of Puget Sound calls their distribution requirements "core." </p>
<p>(Columbia students are pre-enrolled into Lit Hum, which has a reading list with very few variations; Chicago students can choose a humanities core course that may be more tailored to what they want to study in the "Great Books" canon.... these options include a class called "Media Aesthetics" which does everything from Chinese poetry to Poe to Aristotle and then some, to "Reading Cultures" which does Arabian Nights, slave narratives, etc. to "Human Being and Citizen" which very closely parallels Columbia's Lit Hum... those are a few examples right there, I could go on).</p>
<p>Other schools that offer some kind of "core" include Reed College, St. John's College, and Whitman College. I'm actually quite interested in researching other schools that offer core, and it's quite rare.</p>
<p>The benefits of core and distribution requirements are somewhat different.</p>
<p>What are the benefits of distribution requirements? Gaining a familiarity in subject areas outside of your own comfort zone, being able to bridge different disciplines, learning how to use your brain in different ways. Personally, I don't think that college is about focusing on one discipline to the relative neglect of the others-- that's what grad school is for!</p>
<p>What are the benefits of core? Intellectual and social commonality (students at St. John's, Whitman, Chicago, and Columbia can all talk to each other about texts that they've all read or are in the process of reading, and for kids who like to talk about school a lot, this is golden); a particular institution-placed emphasis on and commitment to reading, writing, and critical thinking; cocktail party fodder.</p>
<p>I once taught in Chicago's. Best by far is at Scripps, which focuses on "ways of knowing", and hence avoids the canonical debates. (There is a difference between "core curriculum" and "great books".)</p>
<p>I think Barnard also has a "ways of knowing" setup. Something about the womens' colleges, eh?</p>
<p>I don't know when you taught in Chicago's core, but it underwent some heavy changes around 1999 and I think a couple of changes before that. It's quite possible that the core you taught and the core I take now are two different things.</p>
<p>Caltech has a core curriculum, though its math/science-y. First off, we have 3 terms in an academic year. Every Techer must take 5 terms of math through diffeq, 5 terms of physics through quantum, two terms of chemistry, a chem lab, one term of bio, and MENU course unrelated to their major (like astrophys, or geology), as well as two freshman humanities. </p>
<p>A lot of people gripe about Core, but I think its a good thing to have a very wide background in math and science, no matter which specific type of science or engineering you choose to major in. Also, all students then have a common background in those core topics, since we come from a fairly wide range of preparation from high school (ie, some have only taken physics B, some have taken 2 years of physics at college already). </p>
<p>I guess we have a different set of "great books"...</p>
<p>columbia an chicago are the main ones i always hear of....</p>
<p>northwestern actually has more required courses than chicago, they just don't offer different bundled "core" sequences</p>
<p>All of the following schools listed below in the link provided have strong core curriculums :</p>
<p>2006-2007</a> Top Ten Conservative Colleges</p>
<p>All the above schools have rigorous academics and adhere to traditional moral values.</p>
<p>I like the mixed core and distribution requirements. At Colgate everyone takes Western Traditions and Challenges of Modernity plus some distribution requirements. At Lawrence it is Freshman Studies plus some distribution requirements. </p>
<p>I would think that some kind of core or distribution requirements would almost by definition have to be part of the requirements at a LAC, but that isn't universally true. Grinnell doesn't have them.</p>
<p>I suspect core courses, which are usually huge lectures of the 101 sort, are a way for schools to cut their costs. The more requirements that force students to take elementary level classes (often with inexperienced and non-tenured faculty), the better their bottom line. I also think language requirements are a way to soak up excess capacity in out-dated language departments: students spend thousands of tuition dollars taking Spanish 3 because they didn't get a 4 or 5 on the Spanish AP exam: But if you goal is to do research in chemistry, this is a waste of time. Of course, I'm more cynical than most people....</p>
<p>Well, if core courses are supposed to be an excuse to cut cost, what do we say about fluff courses which are not part of any core curriculum ?</p>
<p>At Brown, a freshman composition course taught students how to "read" television shows such as Big Brother, Seinfeld, and Sex in the City; films such as The Godfather, The Hours, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding; and even "architectural spaces" such as Starbucks and shopping malls.</p>
<p>At Wake Forest, a freshmen composition course called "My Friend Flicka: Companion Species in American Culture," focused on the "intimate connection" between Americans and their pets. Bambi and Lassie were specially featured.</p>
<p>At Ohio State, freshman seminar offerings included "Reading Superheroes," which centered on comic books from the 1930s to the present, and "Why Should I Care?: Rewards and Challenges of Community Service." This last, Bauerlein notes, was organized around two ideologically one-sided conceptions of service: "Marxist educator Paolo Freire's vision of community service for oppressed peoples and radical leftist bell hooks's idea of 'Service as a form of political resistance.'"</p>
<p>And so on.</p>
<p>It's not that one can't interpret popular culture--it's a rich and revealing aspect of our world. And it's not that one can't learn a lot from courses on contemporary issues--of course one can. Rather, the issue centers on priorities--on the manner in which colleges and universities across the country are allowing, even encouraging, students with knowledge gaps and questionable skills not to address either. The tragedy is the "opportunity costs" of fluffy or politicized courses. "Instead of devoting the precious and limited time of freshman year to The Aeneid and the Federalist Papers ( what were traditionally CORE curriculum), they fill the hours with mass culture and tendentious social themes. </p>
<p>One study ( see here : The</a> Wall Street Journal Online - Outside the Box%5DThe">http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110009000))), found that college seniors actually know less about America's history, government, foreign affairs, and economy than they did when they were freshmen--a testament to the manner in which the weak, diffuse curricula common to most schools not only fails to build on existing student knowledge, but also facilitates a deplorable degree of forgetting.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if we should be paying $30,000/year for such fluff. Is this the purpose of sending one's kid to college ?</p>
<p>^^ I didn't know that about Colgate and Lawrence.</p>
<p>I'm hesitant to knock distribution requirements, even ones that are big classes. My dad's and my brother's favorite college classes were all in distribution requirements, not in their major or electives. I'm sure most colleges have a list of "oldies but goodies" that students can take for distribution requirements... the classes are easy, fun, and interesting.</p>
<p>I agree with you, joejitsu, that core should be spent learning about things that one might not get around to otherwise, things that are not as appealing on the surface as, say, talking about Starbucks and hip hop.</p>
<p>Fordham...and it takes almost two years to complete them, particularly if a student comes in the door and has NO AP classes.</p>
<p>But its a very broad and diverse core and is frankly good for the students. Teaches them HOW to think, not WHAT to think.</p>
<p>Since JoeJitsu started talking about fluff courses being offered in place of core curriculum, here's one interesting course from the University of Michigan :</p>
<p>Section Two of English 317 is titled “How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.” Taught by Instructor David Halperin </p>
<p>See here :</p>
<p>Townhall.com::ENG</a> 317: "How Not To Be Gay"::By Mike S. Adams</p>
<p>Here’s what Halperin has to say:</p>
<p>“Just because you happen to be a gay man doesn't mean that you don't have to learn how to become one. Gay men do some of that learning on their own, but often we learn how to be gay from others, either because we look to them for instruction or because they simply tell us what they think we need to know, whether we ask for their advice or not.”</p>
<p>Nice course for your $10,000 in-state tuition ($31,000 out-of-state).</p>
<p>Hey TheWatcher, </p>
<p>I think this is getting to be fun. Since Core Curriculums are out, we might as well invent courses to take their place.</p>
<p>How about this :</p>
<p>The</a> 12 Most Bizarre College Courses in the US - The New Editor</p>
<p>Too much of American higher education has lost any notion of what its students ought to know about the ideas and people and movements that created the civilization in which they live: Who Plato was or what happened at Appomattox.</p>
<p>Instead of the carefully crafted core programs that once guided students through the basics of literature, philosophy, history and the social sciences, most colleges now offer smorgasbords of unrelated classes for their students to sample in order to fulfill requirements. And the professors stock the smorgasbords with whatever the theorists they idolize tells them is the new new thing.</p>
<p>Why not take a course in "The Phallus"?</p>
<p>You can get the same credit for it as for a course in Greek tragedy. </p>
<p>According to the Times, the list includes the following courses: (seriously) </p>
<ol>
<li><p>'The Phallus'
Occidental College. A seminar in critical theory and social justice, this class examines Sigmund Freud, phallologocentrism and the lesbian phallus.</p></li>
<li><p>'Queer Musicology'
UCLA. This course welcomes students from all disciplines to study what it calls an "unruly discourse" on the subject, understood through the works of Cole Porter, Pussy Tourette and John Cage.</p></li>
<li><p>'Taking Marx Seriously'
Amherst College. This advanced seminar for 15 students examines whether Karl Marx still matters despite the countless interpretations and applications of his ideas, or whether the world has entered a post-Marxist era.</p></li>
<li><p>'Adultery Novel'
University of Pennsylvania. Falling in the newly named "gender, culture and society" major, this course examines novels and films of adultery such as "Madame Bovary" and "The Graduate" through Marxist, Freudian and feminist lenses.</p></li>
<li><p>'Blackness'
Occidental College. Critical race theory and the idea of "post-blackness" are among the topics covered in this seminar course examining racial identity. A course on whiteness is a prerequisite.</p></li>
<li><p>'Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration'
University of Washington. This women studies department offering takes a new look at recent immigration debates in the U.S., integrating questions of race and gender while also looking at the role of the war on terror.</p></li>
<li><p>'Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism'
Mount Holyoke College. The educational studies department offers this first-year, writing-intensive seminar asking whether whiteness is "an identity, an ideology, a racialized social system," and how it relates to racism.</p></li>
<li><p>'Native American Feminisms'
University of Michigan. The women's studies and American culture departments offer this course on contemporary Native American feminism, including its development and its relation to struggles for land.</p></li>
<li><p>'"Mail Order Brides?" Understanding the Philippines in Southeast Asian Context'
Johns Hopkins University. This history course — cross-listed with anthropology, political science and studies of women, gender and sexuality — is limited to 35 students and asks for an anthropology course as a prerequisite.</p></li>
<li><p>'Cyberfeminism'
Cornell University. Cornell's art history department offers this seminar looking at art produced under the influence of feminism, post-feminism and the Internet.</p></li>
<li><p>'American Dreams/American Realities'
Duke University. Part of Duke's Hart Leadership Program that prepares students for public service, this history course looks at American myths, from "city on the hill" to "foreign devil," in shaping American history.</p></li>
<li><p>'Nonviolent Responses to Terrorism'
Swarthmore College. Swarthmore's "peace and conflict studies" program offers this course that "will deconstruct 'terrorism' " and "study the dynamics of cultural marginalization" while seeking alternatives to violence.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Will the University of Michigan course be offered under Social Sciences or<br>
Physical Education ? :)</p>