March 30, 2001
The new curriculum is effective for freshmen entering Arts & Sciences in fall 2001.
The current undergraduate curriculum has benefited from significant program initiatives during the past decade but has not had a comprehensive revision for more than 20 years. The new curriculum reflects the success of many of these programs as well as our students' outstanding skills, our faculty's research achievements and passion for teaching, our superior facilities, and our history of cooperation across intellectual disciplines.
Students in other University schools take courses in Arts & Sciences to fulfill their degree requirements. They will be able to take newly developed courses in many areas, without participating in the whole curriculum. They will, of course, be welcome to participate informally by enrolling in clustered courses.
An undergraduate degree in Arts & Sciences will continue to be based on the successful completion of 120 units of course work. Curricular coherence is provided through the following key elements:
Course clusters: Every student will complete a minimum of eight units in each of four topical areas, of which at least six units will come from an approved course cluster. Topical groupings are Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Social Sciences; Textual and Historical Studies; and Language and the Arts.
Capstones: Undergraduate students in their senior year will have opportunities to become partners in research with faculty or to undertake special projects in their chosen majors.
Core courses: Students will acquire specific skills in quantitative analysis and communications by completing:
¥ At least one course focused on the understanding, analysis and evaluation of numerical and other quantitative data.
¥ A writing-intensive course in a specific discipline, e.g., chemistry, philosophy, etc., in addition to freshman composition.
Students will also take at least one course exploring the diversity of national and regional cultures and one course examining such structures of social differentiation as race, class, gender and ethnicity.
Charting a degree: Students will work closely with an adviser to create a coherent structure of study. We want our students to plan a four-year educational program and not to merely pick a few courses, semester-by-semester, in hopes of satisfying requirements, the rationale of which is mysterious. Students will use Web-based technology to create individual curricular plans.
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