A pilot for "Cornerstone," a new core curriculum at Samford University that aims for a more deliberate inclusion and consistent coverage of communication competence, was launched to coincide with the university's sesquicentennial celebration in 1992. The Cultural Legacies component of Cornerstone dealt with instruction in speech…

After much discussion and several false starts, Nassau Community College (New York) has developed a two-course core curriculum designed to cover significant material from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities in practical proportions. The first course in the sequence, "Exploring Nature and Society," deals with Perceptions of the…

Attempts by the faculty at Baker University to introduce American undergraduates to the history of the Western tradition as part of their general education are described. The strengths and weaknesses of the Western civilization course and of the core curriculum formerly offered by the college are analyzed. The rationale for the interdisciplinary…

A study was undertaken to assess the extent to which the basic speech communication course fulfilled the needs of students and alumni of a large midwestern university. Specifically, the study sought to discover whether the basic course should be required and whether public speaking, interpersonal communication, or another activity should be the…

The school of communication at Northern Arizona University identified four areas--survey, written, oral, and theory--to be included in the core curriculum for all communication majors. As a follow-up to the deliberation by the school's curriculum committee, a study was undertaken to determine if such central curricula could be found in similar…

The interpersonal communication course at an Ohio college is based on several assumptions about the nature of interpersonal communication. First, the course should emphasize both the ability to demonstrate knowledge of the communicative behavior appropriate in a given situation (cognitive domain) and the performance necessary for communication…

Three papers presented at a teacher education conference on the development of common core curriculum for vocational teacher education are contained in this booklet. The titles and authors are as follow: "A Model Methods Course for Agricultural Education," by L. H. Newcomb; "Preparing Teachers to Develop Courses of Study in Vocational…

When Loyola University dropped its foreign language requirement in 1971, another requirement took its place. Students are now required to take three courses in literature, one of which is to be a course in a literature not originally written in English. Introductory courses (called Masterpieces courses) in French, German, Spanish, and Russian…

An international studies major for undergraduate students at the State University of New York College at Cortland is described. The major is designed to provide students with knowledge and skills that enable them to understand and help change a world that is interdependent, and determined by long-range forces. It is hoped that the international…

Autonomous schools in Israel are faced with the challenge of integrating centralized and decentralized curricular approaches. The curriculum structure by which schools attempt to comply with national curricula standards and achieve school autonomy is examined. Case studies of three primary schools involved document analysis, observation,…