Arts & Sciences rolls out new curriculum

By Gerry Everding

Providing students with the intellectual depth and agility necessary to thrive in a complex and increasingly interconnected world is the hallmark of a rich and carefully orchestrated four-year curriculum that awaits all incoming first-year students in Arts & Sciences in fall 2001.

"Although the current curriculum has continued to introduce significant program initiatives throughout the past decade, it has not had a comprehensive revision for almost 20 years," said Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of Arts & Sciences.

"The new curriculum reflects not only changes that have taken place within our own University, but also in the world in which we live. By providing students with the opportunity to master a wide range of materials, ideas, skills and methodologies, we can offer them the skills that Arts & Sciences alumni say are most important for advanced study and advanced professional engagement in any field or endeavor."

Designed to advance curricular coherence, the revised curriculum emphasizes a course of study that builds a network of skills and information across all four years. Key elements include greatly expanded interdisciplinary studies called course clusters; increased opportunities for small-group experiences with professors; paths to enable undergraduates to become partners in research with faculty or to undertake special projects in their chosen major through capstone experiences; and a renewed emphasis on writing and quantitative analysis as part of the undergraduate program.

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Reception

All members of the Arts & Sciences faculty are invited to a reception to celebrate the announcement of the new curriculum and to thank all of those who have worked so hard to make it happen. The reception will be at 4 p.m. April 26 in Holmes Lounge.

More on the curriculum

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Extensive, thorough revision process paved the way

Existing first-year programs offer taste of what's ahead

In many ways the new Arts & Sciences curriculum is far from being "new." Rather, the principles and ideas of the new approach have been developed over the last decades in a number of popular interdisciplinary programs for incoming freshmen.

New curriculum helps push University to a new level

In his inaugural address, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said, 'The resolve of Washington University to move to the next level of achievement among universities will require that special attention be directed toward enhancing Arts & Sciences.' Now, less than a decade later, many of Wrighton's expectations for Arts & Sciences are being realized with the development of the new curriculum.

Sophisticated online planner assists charting courses

Unlike their contemporaries across the country, newly admitted freshmen in Arts & Sciences won't just be selecting first-semester courses from a thick catalog. Instead, they will be using the Web to plan a sequenced course of study designed to achieve curricular coherence across all four years of their undergraduate experience, thanks to innovative curriculum-planning software developed by University information systems specialists.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about the new Arts& Sciences undergraduate curriculum.

Cluster samples

Under the College of Arts & Sciences' new undergraduate curriculum, interdisciplinary learning experiences are available to its students through nearly 250 course clusters. Here are descriptions of four sample clusters.

Alumna Thomas lends her experience to curriculum planning

Barbara Schaps Thomas, a 1976 graduate of Arts & Sciences and now senior vice president and chief financial officer of Time Warner Sports/HBO, is one of many alumni who helped shape the new curriculum by providing often passionate input regarding the benefits gained from a broad and rigorous undergraduate education in Arts & Sciences.

Researchers pinpoint region responsible for Mars' heyday

By Tony Fitzpatrick

University planetary scientists and various collaborators have concluded that the Tharsis rise region in Mars' western hemisphere is key to many of the Red Planet's mysteries, including its large-scale shape and gravity field, and its early climate and water distribution.

Roger J. Phillips, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences and director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, and his colleagues suggest an enormous load of volcanic material emplaced at the Tharsis rise caused global changes to the planet's strong outer layer, or lithosphere, creating many key features in the landscape.

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Philips: Mars researcher

New addictions center to be launched Monday

By Ann Nicholson

The George Warren Brown School of Social Work will officially launch its new Comorbidity and Addictions Center (CAC) at 8:30 a.m. Monday with a lecture and panel discussion in Brown Hall Lounge.

A first-of-its-kind center for addiction research, CAC is funded by a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Directed by Arlene R. Stiffman, Ph.D., professor of social work, CAC supports groundbreaking research on addiction interventions for underserved populations. The center is the first in the nation affiliated with a school of social work.

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