When the dust has settled from the upcoming curriculum review, students may no longer be able to avoid courses in foreign languages or quantitative reasoning.
William Chafe, dean of Trinity College and the faculty of Arts and Sciences, is in the process of appointing a curriculum review committee to examine Trinity College's core graduation requirements and recommending changes to the curriculum.
Chafe said he hopes the committee will present its results by the end of this academic year. He forecasted that after a lengthy approval process, which would consist of a faculty vote and the creation of a committee charged with implementing the changes, the recommendations could be in place by the 1999 fall semester.
As with most such changes, the new graduation requirements would only affect incoming students to the University.
During Chafe's annual "State of the Arts and Sciences" address, he announced specific areas that the committee will emphasize during its review. "I hope to charge the committee with a coherent agenda of objectives, and not to complicate their work by a series of potentially less important, but distracting, questions," he said.
One area of focus will be the need for increased diversity within the curriculum. "I believe it is imperative that we come to grips with the diversity within our own culture based upon race, economic status, gender and region," Chafe said in his address. The review committee will consider the recommendations made last year by a task force that evaluated the current curriculum's diversity.
In addition to Chafe's call for student exposure to world cultures, he recommended that the committee examine whether Trinity College students be required to complete a core curriculum and demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language.
"In a society that totally depends upon international communication, it is no longer acceptable for American students to speak only one language when they leave a distinguished university," he said in his address.
Chafe also said that the committee will reexamine the "senior experience" and make recommendations for changing the University Writing Program.
He further suggested that the committee ensure that every student become adept at using scientific principles to address intellectual problems. "We owe our students the opportunity to understand the fundamental principles by which scientists address the would around them," he said in his address.
The committee, the members of which will be announced next week, will consist of liaisons to the current course committee, seven faculty members, a dean and two students. Though he will make the appointments, he has solicited recommendations from student groups, including Duke Student Government and the Arts and Sciences Council Executive Committee.
Trinity sophomore Ben Kennedy, DSG vice president for academic affairs, said that DSG has not yet decided on a process to select its recommendations.
Such an extensive review, intended to substantially modify the curriculum, last occurred more than a decade ago, Chafe said.
"I have been struck by the importance of providing Duke students with the kind of education in science, language, and culture that can prepare them for a global economy and an interdependent world," he said.
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