GUIDELINES FOR THE UNIVERSITY CORE COMMITTEE (UCC)

The UCC is assisted in its work by the following guidelines.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT

Where applicable, Core requirements may be waived through the Advanced Placement Examination Program as determined by individual departments.

TRANSFER STUDENTS

Under special circumstances transfer students with 55 or more accepted credits upon entrance may petition to waive a maximum of six credits of Core requirements.  Transfer students with 25 or more accepted credits upon entrance may waive the first-year seminar.

CRITERIA FOR CORE COURSES

John Carroll University's Core Curriculum in the Liberal Arts deals with the creative, social, religious, philosophical, and scientific developments of past and present cultures and their ideas and human values.  These studies impart an appreciation for complexity and the ability to think critically and to write and speak with precision and clarity.  The Core Curriculum helps students to make informed, free choices of personal values to confront a changing world.  Because not all courses serve the purposes for which the Core Curriculum in the Liberal Arts exists, the faculty has approved the following guidelines for evaluating Core courses.

Principles Required for Core Courses:

1. Core courses are designed to open the mind, broaden awareness, and widen horizons rather than to prepare for specific careers.  They cultivate the intellect, stimulate the imagination, and develop general mental skills rather than vocational skills.  In the long run, such general skills constitute the best preparation for any career.
2. Core courses should stress critical thinking, problem-solving, and oral/written expression.
3. Core courses should encourage active learning.
4. Core courses should introduce students to the traditions and the common body of knowledge and/or the glossary of a discipline.
5. Core courses should introduce students to how an individual discipline employs various methodologies through which knowledge is generated.
6. Core courses should contain sufficient interdisciplinary aspects to build bridges to other disciplines.  Core courses should emphasize connections to other disciplines and should be taught so as to reflect other disciplines that constitute the Core.
7. Core courses are designed for nonspecialists and are suitable for non-majors, but each is planned in such a way as to introduce material of fundamental and lasting significance.  In this sense Core courses are foundation studies.
8. Core courses at the introductory level should be designed for first-year and sophomore students, although juniors and seniors will often be enrolled.
9. Introductory courses in major sequences may serve as Core courses only if they are also suitable for non-majors.
10. Core courses that are beyond a discipline's introductory offering should build upon concepts and methods conveyed in an introductory course.
11. Core courses are not tools to proselytize majors into a discipline, but should introduce concepts and methods of a discipline that may attract students to that major.
12. All sections of Core courses should be pedagogically rigorous as reflected by syllabi, assignments, examinations, and other requirements.
13. Core courses should help students to become aware of their own values and to develop a reflective view of life. 

Where appropriate Core courses should:

-    introduce the ethics of a discipline

-    address the state-of-the-art technology in a discipline (e.g., computer applications)

-    encourage the collaborative process of learning (students and teacher, students and peers)

-    create an awareness among students of the current issues in a discipline

-    broaden students' perspectives through attention to global concerns and to such issues as diversity and gender, environ­mental responsibility, and social justice.

 FIRST YEAR SEMINAR

Descriptions and Goals:
The First Year Seminar offers an interdisciplinary introduction to academic investigation. This seminar focuses upon a common theme and common reading(s) and is taught by faculty from all areas of the University. A graded course characterized by disciplined investigation of topics and consistently rigorous academic standards, the seminar will feature the following:

• An environment that promotes the early development of academic skills in first year students and fosters a serious attitude toward academic activities and responsibilities
• A pedagogy that emphasizes active learning and develops students’ skills in critical inquiry and problem solving
• A context that promotes collaboration and integrated learning
• A milieu in which students learn to question and clarify their values
• An emphasis on the development of written and oral skills

Curriculum:
Coordination of curriculum and other issues relating to the First Year Seminar will be the responsibility of a First Year Seminar Committee (FYSC) comprised of the Director of the First Year Seminar (elected by the faculty to a three year term), the Director of the Core and three faculty members (elected by the faculty to staggered three year terms). The FYS Director will report regularly to the Director of the Core. The FYSC reports regularly to the University Core Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the budget for the First Year Seminar.

The FYSC will consult with the faculty in order to formulate a broad theme for all the sections of the course. The theme must be centered in the core values of JCU as expressed in the Mission Statement and be sufficiently broad so as to allow exploration from the perspectives of many disciplines from across the university. The FYSC will then announce the theme and send out a call for proposals for learning communities (and “mini-themes”) within that theme.

It is expected that each faculty member submitting a proposal will agree to act as coordinator for his/her group, if the proposal is accepted. The FYSC will review the proposals submitted and choose 5 faculty learning communities for the next three years of FYS. The FYSC will then send out a call for faculty to participate in the learning communities and teach the FYS. Each department of the University will commit instructors for at least one and usually two sections of the First Year Seminar. Instructors in the seminars must be full-time faculty. Faculty will apply for acceptance in a particular learning community/mini-theme, specifying a ranked set of three choices. The FYSC and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences will then choose among the applicants to form the learning communities and staff the course, keeping in mind the need for appropriate disciplinary diversity in the composition of the learning communities. When appropriate, this selection process will involve interaction between the faculty member, his/her department and the Directors of the FYS and the Core, along with the Dean. Once the faculty learning communities are formed, the FYSC will be expanded by adding the coordinator from each learning community, to ensure adequate communication between the groups and the oversight body. In general, the learning communities are expected to continue for all three years of the theme, and the groups may choose to rotate the coordinator position.

The expanded FYSC will choose, with input from all faculty teaching the course, one or more common reading(s) to be used in all sections. Each learning community will be assigned liaisons from Grasselli Library, from the university writing programs and from Student Affairs who will be available to support the faculty group in developing assignments as well as cocurricular activities.

The learning communities will begin to meet in the late Spring and early Fall of year before the FYS cycle is to start, to develop the content, academic requirements and assessment mechanisms for the course, eventually supplying more and more detailed course descriptions to the expanded FYSC. During this development process, the expanded FYSC will ensure that each mini-theme fits the common theme and the FYS course guidelines for student workload, interdisciplinarity and assessment, providing feedback as appropriate. Early in the Fall semester of the year before the FYS cycle commences, all the FYS faculty will meet in a workshop to learn more about the expectations for the course and students and to compare plans. Each learning community will continue to meet regularly in both the Fall and Spring semesters of the academic year immediately prior to the start of the course, with the goal of having each course well-planned by the beginning of the summer. During the course itself, each learning community will continue to meet so that the faculty may exchange ideas (in addition to any activities common those sections). The learning communities will meet at least once early in the semester immediately following the course, to assess what aspects of the class did or did not work well. The learning communities will continue to meet appropriately over the subsequent years of the theme.

Logistics:
The First Year Seminar, a three-credit course, will be taken by all first year students during the fall semester. (Although not required for transfer students, they may choose it as an optional elective.) Each FYS section will contain no more than twenty students. When registering for first year courses, incoming students will indicate their choices for learning communities/mini-themes and will be randomly assigned to one of the sections in the appropriate learning community. The seminar will provide an opportunity for diverse learning opportunities, including exchanging professors, combining sections for special events or projects, and inviting guest speakers to address all the sections of a learning community.

Advisement:
Teachers of the First Year Seminar may elect to have their advisees selected from the students assigned to their sections.

Evaluation:
Every year, the expanded FYSC will work with the University Office of Planning and Assessment to evaluate the FYS. In the Spring of 2010, the Faculty Council will evaluate the FYS and will present a formal assessment to the Faculty to help inform its decision on whether to continue the FYS in this format.

DIVISION I

The speech communication requirement is satisfied by CO 100 (CO 100H for Honors Program students).  [CO 100 will be taught in individual sections integrating theory and practice.]  This requirement may also be satisfied through an exam­ination administered by the Department of Communications for those students who have completed at least one year of high school speech.

The level of placement for English composition is determined on the basis of individual needs as indicated by test scores submitted at the time of admission, and writing samples completed during the orientation for first-year students.

The foreign language requirement is satisfied by two courses in the same language.  Students may begin a new language, or continue a language at their level of competence, as determined by the placement examinations administered during the orientation for first-year students.  Foreign nationals whose native language is not English are exempt from the foreign language requirement. 

Nontraditional students may satisfy the foreign language requirement by an alternative method approved by the chairperson of the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Cultures, the Director of the UCCLA, and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.  Nontraditional students are defined as part-time students, evening students, and students who began or returned to college after an absence of five years from formal education.

DIVISION II

The literature requirement is satisfied by taking a course from either the Department of English or the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Cultures.  The chosen course will be one in which literature is studied as an aspect of a culture, an historical period or a genre.

History courses are those designated by HS or AH and determined by the UCC to have satisfied the criteria for Core courses.

DIVISION III

These requirements may be satisfied by taking any two courses from two different departments designated EC, PO, or SC, and determined by the UCC to have satisfied the criteria for Core courses.

DIVISION IV

The UCC will determine which courses designated BL, CH, CS, MT, PH, or PS have satisfied the criteria for Core courses.

In addition, a laboratory science course in BL, CH, PH, or a laboratory science course which integrates these three disciplines, must provide students with the following: 

1. A minimum of a two-hour per week laboratory period connected with the course.
2. Opportunities for frequent, active participation in applying the scientific method.
3. Demonstrations as a natural part of the lecture and, where appropriate, of the laboratory.

Course requirements must include written laboratory reports.  Laboratory reports should contain tabular and graphical representations of data in order to discover relationships and use appropriate mathematical language to state those  relation­ships. 

DIVISION V

In both Philosophy and Religious Studies the introductory course should introduce students to those disciplines in a manner that ensures a common basis of knowledge among the students for courses that will follow the introductions to the disciplines.

The two additional courses in Philosophy should be designed to follow organically from the introductory course to make a logical sequence from beginning to end.  Similarly, the second course in Religious Studies should also follow organically from the introductory course.

Courses that satisfy both the introductory courses and the sequenced courses will be those as determined by the UCC to have satisfied the criteria for Core courses.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

The UCC will determine which courses satisfy the following additional requirements. 

Writing Intensive Courses:

Throughout the curriculum faculty should expose students to a variety of writing experiences.  In the Core students must take at least one writing intensive course beyond English composition.  Since courses throughout the curriculum will be designated as "W," students may graduate with several such courses.  The primary goal of this requirement is to enable students to carry into their upper-division courses the discipline and habits of good writing nurtured in composition  courses.  A second yet equally important goal is to intensify the expectation of professors throughout the University for excellent standards of expression in all written assignments.

The following criteria should apply to all "W" (writing intensive) courses:

1. Ordinarily, each department or major will offer at least one "W" course per semester.  This implies that most students will satisfy their "W" require­ment within their own major.
2. The instructor in every "W" course will devote at least some time to issues of writing.  This implies that the writing required in a course will be more than merely an addition to the syllabus.
3. The instructor in every "W" course will distribute a style sheet adapted to the discipline.
4. The writing requirement for each "W" course will be equivalent to one of the following:
      a.     Students submit a minimum of three short papers (3-5 pages), at least    one of which goes through three drafts, one of which must be peer edited;    or
      b.    Students write one term paper (10-12 pages), which goes through three    drafts, one of which must be peer edited.
5. Faculty who elect to teach writing intensive courses will participate in a one-day workshop, offered annually.  In order to foster a consistent pedagogical perspective and to provide help for those students who have special needs, those faculty will also maintain a liaison with the English Department Writing Center.

International Courses:

In their content international courses transcend national boundaries or viewpoints.  They investigate one or more nations or cultures other than the United States.

The purpose of the one course requirement on Asia, Africa, or Latin America is to expose students to nations and cultures historically distinct from Western (originally, European) civilization.

Diversity Courses:

Courses focusing on issues of diversity should investigate one or more groups outside the dominant culture within a nation.

EVALUATION

The UCC will develop an appropriate evaluation procedure to assess the extent to which the Core Curriculum in the Liberal Arts satisfies the goals stated above.  The initial evaluation should occur in the fourth year following implementation.  The assessment of student outcomes in relation to the Core should then become an ongoing process