Arts and Sciences Council continues Curriculum 2000 revamp

With a semester of work under its belt, the Imagining the Duke Curriculum Committee is continuing to work toward tweaking Curriculum 2000.

The committee discussed its progress at Thursday's Arts and Sciences Council meeting, centering on the question of what a Duke education promises students and how the curriculum could better fill that promise. The committee—chaired by Suzanne Shanahan, associate director of the Kenan Institute of Ethics—was convened in September to begin a three-year review of the Curriculum 2000, which dictates the graduation requirements for the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.

The committee spent much of the Fall identifying concerns with Trinity's current curriculum, Shanahan said. Now, they are focusing on possible solutions—many of which emphasize the role faculty can play in mentoring students and helping them pursue specific passions, rather than checking boxes off of a list.

"If we want to have high expectations of our students, we need to have high expectations of ourselves," Shanahan said.

Shanahan's committee has held open weekly meetings for the past several months, seeking input on the curriculum from faculty, students and staff from across Trinity. The review will seek to ensure that the current Curriculum 2000—which was introduced in 2000 and last modified in 2004—is still working as well as it was originally intended to. This year represents the "diagnosis" stage of the review, focusing on determining the areas of the curriculum that will be targeted for change. Shanahan's committee is tasked with producing a report by Fall 2015 with recommendations, and the 2015-16 and 2016-17 academic years will see Trinity determining the best ways to implement the changes before launching a revised version of the curriculum.

Many of the concepts Shanahan presented Thursday centered on students being able to discover and pursue academic passions, particularly through the creation of "scholarly communities." She emphasized the necessity balancing a strong liberal arts background with opportunities for research, as well as providing students with the skills needed for service and leadership.

There are numerous ways the curriculum could be changed to emphasize these factors of a Duke education, Shanahan said—everything from a stricter cap on the number of majors and minors a student can pursue to offering modular courses that are shorter than a semester. There is also the question of incorporating what Shanahan described as the "shadow curriculum"—academic opportunities outside of the classroom such as Bass Connections and DukeEngage.

For now, however, the focus remains on garnering input from throughout Trinity and determining the best way to capitalize on opportunities unique to Duke.

The new proposal requires that 24 of a student's credits be Duke-originated. The rules regarding pre-matriculation credits—such as Advanced Placement credit—and transfer credits remain the same, with students able to count up to two pre-matriculation credits and two transfer credits toward graduation.

However, the rules in regard to interinstitutional credit from the University of North Carolina system are now changed. Currently, students may take one course each semester at UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Greensboro, North Carolina Central University or North Carolina State University, so long as the course is not being offered at Duke in the same academic year. The proposal limits the number of credits a student may earn from this agreement to four.