Challenge Of Rigorous Education
The Indispensable Core
David Kaplan, Susan Fanetti, Robert Ware
Preliminary Proposal
The Core Four Curriculum offers a rigorous and challenging approach to the essential problems, crucial achievements, and cumulative knowledge of Western Civilization, along with the fundamental skills of critical thought and effective communication. The Curriculum is based upon four sequences of core courses: Global, Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. The Global Sequence is three semesters in length; the latter three Sequences are two semesters each. The Global Sequence consists of two semesters of a foreign language, and one semester of a course on any non-Western culture or society. “Western” is defined as the cultures of Europe and North America . Students will select a non-Western course from a menu of approved courses offered within various departments, such as those currently listed in the Catalogue. All students must take two semesters of a foreign language at an appropriate skill level. No student may avoid this requirement through proficiency exams, advanced placement, etc. A student who enters the University with advanced language skills will take two semesters of advanced language classes.
The latter three core sequences share a common structure: Students in each sequence meet for large lectures (200 or more students) three hours per week, and small discussion sections (15 students or less) two hours per week. The 15-student maximum on discussion sections is absolute and inviolable; whenever possible these sections will have fewer than 15 students.
Each core sequence will involve a Great Books approach to its respective area of study. The selection of Great Books may vary from one year to another, depending upon the preferences of the current teaching team, and approval of the Core Four Curriculum Directors (below). In any given semester, the teaching team will be led by the lecturer responsible for instruction in the large lecture course. No less than 25 per cent of the discussion sections will be taught by full-time faculty. No more than 75 per cent of the discussion sections will be taught by graduate assistants or call staff. All of the discussion section staff will attend all of the lectures for their course in order to assist their students in analyzing and understanding the material. It is especially important that the full time faculty teaching discussion sections should attend each of the lectures, as this will be one of the guarantees of the quality of the lectures. Full-time faculty may teach in any core sequence in which they are conversant, and may teach in more than one core sequence as appropriate to their interests and expertise.
Each discussion section will critically consider the reading and the lectures. Depending upon which core sequence they fall within, discussion sections will also concentrate upon the skills of critical thought, composition, and numeracy. In the Humanities and Social Science Sequences, students will write five substantive, out-of-class papers each semester. In the Natural Sciences Sequence, students will write two substantive, out-of-class papers each semester, while focusing upon numerical skills.
The first semester of the Humanities Sequence will cover selected material from the ancient world to the Renaissance. The second semester of the Humanities Sequence will include selected material from the Renaissance to the contemporary period. The historical distribution of material in the Natural Sciences and Social Sciences Sequences will be less structured, and it is expected that more emphasis will be placed upon the modern era, but some material from the ancient world will always be included in the first semester. For example, the first semester of the Natural Sciences Sequence might survey Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Ptolemy, before coming forward to Galileo (depending upon the interests of the particular teaching team). The Social Sciences sequence might consider Aristotle and Justinian before coming forward to Machiavelli (depending upon the interests of the particular teaching team).
The Four Core Curriculum will have a full-time faculty director with responsibility for the program as a whole. The Core Curriculum Director will be expected to lecture in at least one core course per year, and may teach other courses in her/his area of expertise. Each of the Four Core Sequences will have a full time faculty director, who will be expected to lecture in at least one core course per year, and may teach other courses in her area of expertise. A national search will be conducted for the Program Director and all four Core Directors.
These five directors will be responsible for guaranteeing the quality of lectures and discussion sections, and for upholding and enforcing very high academic standards in all sequences. They will do this, in part, by reading and grading randomly selected papers from the first writing assignment from each discussion section under their supervision, and thereafter by spot-checking discussion section grades. It is an absolute and inviolable requirement of the program that nearly all students will receive ‘D's' or ‘F's' on their first writing assignment. Grades of ‘C' or better will be given on the first paper only in truly exceptional cases. Students will be allowed to revise their first papers in each sequence with the possibility of improving their grades in accordance with the same rigorous and exacting standards. The papers will be weighted through the semester, so that the first papers will count for less than the last papers. This will replace the University's current freshman composition program.
These standards will be maintained inexorably throughout each sequence. Most students will recover from the shock and work up to these standards.(1) Those who do not will receive a ‘D' or an ‘F' for the course, and will be required to repeat it. Students will receive credit for a Core Course only with a grade of ‘C' or better.
It is the expectation of the Four Core Program that strict adherence to very high academic standards in the core courses, required of all students, will eventually raise academic standards throughout the University. As the Four Core Program begins to guarantee high-level thinking and writing skills among all University students, it is expected that substantive writing assignments will be given in most University classes, and assessed according to rigorous standards.
Literature explaining the Core Four Curriculum and its academic standards will be sent to all of those secondary schools from which the University principally draws. The literature will ask secondary school faculty to help prepare their students to meet these standards. It is intended that the Four Core Program will pull the academic and intellectual cultures of the University, and the surrounding region, up by their boot straps.
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1) As do the students in the Humanities Writing Program of Revelle College, at the University of California, San Diego, upon which this proposal is partially modeled, and in similar programs at other University of California campuses, as well as other campuses around the country.