Common Core

This article is about a program of the University of Chicago. For the new U.S. education standards, see Common Core State Standards Initiative.

The Common Core (also core curriculum or the Core) is the University of Chicago's implementation of the Great Books program for its college. These courses cover topics in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, and sciences. It forms the general education requirements for the college and uses the Socratic method to teach critical analysis of original texts. The purpose of the Core is to provide a common intellectual experience for all undergraduate students regardless of their major. It is also associated with Chicago's highly academic culture and its reputation for rigor.

The Core was founded on the principles of educational perennialism by Chicago President Robert Hutchins and philosophy professor Mortimer Adler in the 1930s. It has been modified and expanded in order to address the accusation of deifying Dead White Men, but in essence it is still as it was originally intended: a broad introduction to the best thinkers of Western Civilization through original source material.

History

The New Plan

The tradition of general education at the undergraduate level at the University of Chicago started in the early 1920s under the New Plan proposed by Dean Chauncy S. Boucher. Boucher's stated goal was to attract intellectually stronger students to Chicago at the risk of losing its weaker and less committed ones. The first interdisciplinary science survey course for freshman was called "The Nature of the World and Man".

In 1930, when President Robert Hutchins decided to restructure the University into four separate graduate divisions, the College became administratively independent as well. Boucher took this opportunity to expand his general education curriculum to four year-long survey courses administered by faculty from the four graduate divisions: humanities, social sciences, biological sciences, and physical sciences. Boucher believed these courses would provide students with historical perspective into a variety of fields and would benefit students seeking an academic career and those who intended to go into the professions alike. A key component of the curriculum was the absence of grades in favor of six-hour comprehensive final exams.

Hutchins' "Great Books" seminar

Although Robert Hutchins is known for the founding of the Core, the University President was ambivalent towards the leaders of the general education curriculum that Chauncy Boucher had selected for his New Plan. Hutchins' collaboration with Mortimer Adler had led to the creation of a two-year seminar called "General Honors 101", later renamed "Classics of the Western World". Students met for two hours a week on Thursday evenings with no formal lectures. The readings focused exclusively on the Great Books, the first year covering Homer to Cervantes and the second year covering Duns Scotus to Freud. Hutchins' "Great Books" course became an ongoing challenge to Boucher's New Plan and represented a entirely different intellectual approach: one that used classical texts to stress introspection and active interpretation.

Emergence of the Core

The tension between Boucher's New Plan and the Hutchins-Adler "Great Books" approach led to the revolution of 1942. Structural changes in the College led to the development of a two-year core curriculum approach that would stay in place until the 1990s.

Structure

Requirements

Beginning in the 1940s, the College of the University of Chicago had a Common Core curriculum that required 21 courses. In 1998, University President Hugo Sonnenschein, an economist, decided to reduce the Core to 15 classes in order to attract more applicants to the college. The protests that followed led to his resignation in 1999.

The structure of the new Core consists of integrated sequences of quarter-long courses in the liberal arts and sciences. The requirements of the Core normally take up one-third of an undergraduate's total course credits towards an A.B. or a S.B..

Table of Core Curriculum Requirements

Discipline	Sample courses	Quarters Required
Humanities Students engage with literary, historical, and philosophical texts through the Humanities Core in the first year.	Greek Thought and Literature Philosophical Perspectives in the Humanities Readings in World Literature Human Being and Citizen Reading Cultures: Collection, Travel, Exchange Media Aesthetics: Image, Sound, Text Sample texts: Homer, The Iliad; Aristotle, Poetics; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; The Woman in the Dunes (Special Jury Prize, Cannes Film Festival, 1964); Susan Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’ ”	2-3
Social Sciences Students examine how societies are organized through the Social Sciences Core in the first or second year.	Self, Culture, and Society Power, Identity, and Resistance Mind Classics of Social and Political Thought Social Science Inquiry Sample texts: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks; Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations; Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844; Writings by Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Aquinas, Sigmund Freud, and Simone de Beauvoir	3
Civilization Students can encounter a Western or non-Western civilization on campus or through a study abroad program.	History of European Civilization Jewish Thought and Literature America in World Civilization Jerusalem in Middle Eastern Civilizations (in Jerusalem, Israel) African Civilization in Africa (in Cape Town, South Africa) China in East Asian Civilization (in Beijing, China)	2-3
Art, Music, or Drama Students choose among courses in the theory or practice of the arts in Art History, Music, Theater and Performance Studies, Creative Writing, or Visual Arts programs.	Islamic Art and Architecture, 1100 to 1500 Introduction to Music Analysis and Criticism Visual Language Words and Bodies in Space and Time	1-2
Mathematics Students develop skills in formal reasoning and logic in mathematics courses.	Calculus Elementary Statistics Multimedia Programming as an Interdisciplinary Art Honors Introduction to Computer Science	1-2
Biological Sciences Students choose among course options that explore the process of scientific inquiry in the biological sciences.	Eliminating Infectious Disease Metabolism and Exercise Life through a Genomic Lens Cellular and Molecular Biology	2-3
Physical Sciences Students are exposed to scientific observation and reasoning in Core physical sciences courses.	Foundations of Modern Physics The Science of Global Environmental Change Introduction to Astrophysics	2-3
Foreign Languages Students must demonstrate skill in a foreign language equivalent to one year of college-level study.	American Sign Language Arabic Chinese French Latin Portuguese	3 (can be fulfilled through placement test)
Physical Education Students must pass a swimming test and demonstrate physical fitness in order to graduate.	Conditioning Yoga Tennis Swimming	3 (can be fulfilled through fitness test)