By Laurence E. Goss, Jr.
Department of Geography

Laurence Goss

Through the governance process, Salem State College adopted in 2005 a wonderful “Philosophy of the Undergraduate Core Curriculum,” which appears on page 12 of the 2008-2010 Salem State College Catalog [PDF link] . This concise philosophy statement is followed by over four pages of an almost bewildering set of requirements that students need to meet to satisfy the College’s core curriculum requirements. Simply stated, I believe the core curriculum should have two purposes: first, to provide the basic knowledge and skills that the student will need to be successful in college and in life after college, and second, to engage students in learning about themselves, other people, and the world around them from a variety of perspectives provided by the different academic disciplines. It is time to implement a simpler core curriculum.

Students enter Salem State as freshmen with a wide range of interests, skills and competencies. Many of the basic skills or competencies required for success in college and life, such as composition and mathematics, can be obtained during high school and can be tested for, so that the student may not need to take specific courses to learn them again. If remedial courses are required in these areas, the credit hours should not count toward core curriculum or graduation requirements. However, college-level writing and mathematics courses that are part of a required core curriculum, if not tested out of, would count, as is currently the case.

The objective of taking introductory courses in six to eight different kinds of disciplines across the humanities, social sciences and sciences is to help students understand different ways of learning, as well as to understand more about themselves, others and the wider world. This effort also includes teaching the student how to engage in active, life-long learning and would also include one or two courses in the life-skills area that could include health and physical education. Taking this diversity of courses may also help the student select a major after the end of freshman year. The kinds of courses that would satisfy the distributive requirements should reflect the variety of knowledge areas that the College has said in its philosophy statement is important for all of its graduates to have. These distributive requirements should also satisfy an important goal of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), which is for its member institutions to educate students in the ability to work with others in teams. What I think this means is the ability to be part of a team of people who can work together to solve complex problems from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Today’s college graduate needs to understand and appreciate the different approaches that others bring to the team, both at and outside of work. A well-structured multi-disciplinary core curriculum in the freshman year can help achieve this NEASC goal.

There is far too much emphasis at Salem State on picking a major at the beginning of freshman year when the focus should be on completing the core curriculum requirements first. The current core curriculum requirements at Salem State are too numerous and reflect an outdated attempt to insert a broad liberal arts education into a teachers college curriculum. With a few exceptions, New England colleges like Salem State have been more likely to have an extensive and prescriptive core curriculum in comparison with colleges in other regions of the United States. At the other extreme, some of NEASC’s sister regional accrediting associations appear to place almost no emphasis on requiring a liberal arts core curriculum, which I believe is a major mistake.

Salem State should have a core curriculum, but it should be multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary and be reduced to around 36 hours, or ten to twelve courses beyond basic college entry requirements. This would free up far more space elsewhere on student flow sheets to do such things as take double majors, engage in study abroad programs or exchange programs at other universities in the United States, and select more elective courses. This opportunity for students to have more options for course selection should not be used as an excuse for the college’s professional school departments to not leave any room for electives or a second major. Our goal should be to provide a quality educational experience with individualized learning opportunities to all our undergraduates, regardless of major. As the college thinks about further revisions to its core curriculum, the core curriculum philosophy statement adopted in 2005 should not be abandoned or modified, but actually implemented in a more meaningful and simpler manner.

This article is part of ASpect’s March 2010 issue on the core curriculum.