This paper describes an interdisciplinary undergraduate curriculum innovation that links classroom learning to hands-on business and community service work. The program, called the Integrative Business Experience (IBE), requires students to enroll concurrently in three required core business courses and a practicum course in which they develop and…

The Vermont college has radically revamped its class structure to better prepare students for life beyond the lecture halls. The collegewide program, "Education in 3 Dimensions," centers on three main parts: life-skills workshops, an interdisciplinary core curriculum, and professional courses. Required courses make up all three…

In an effort to infuse professional and preprofessional academic programs with liberal arts learning, this project at the University of Baltimore (Maryland) resulted in the establishment of a required liberal arts core curriculum for upper division students. The project provided funding for three activities: interdisciplinary team teaching of the…

Human behavior and social environment courses are traditionally the foundation on which the rest of the social work curriculum is based, but their development has been "chaotic." An analysis of 481 graduate courses at 66 graduate schools indicates that formal guidelines have been minimally implemented. (Author/MH)

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of a 3-year, federally supported project at the University of Massachusetts (Lowell) to develop a 4-year general education core program featuring both curriculum coherence and choices in courses for students. The curriculum was developed by faculty working in small interdisciplinary…

Suggestions for reforming K-12 art education are made. The arts must be seen as basic, not as extracurricular activities. Arts in the general education curriculum should teach content, concepts, and critical appreciation skills. An interdisciplinary approach to the arts should be used. (RM)

Asserts that, among trends in higher education, none is more debated than the place of general education and the use of the core curriculum as an antidote to specialized education. Argues that psychology can be effectively presented to undergraduates in an interdisciplinary core curriculum. (CFR)

Arguing that recent proposals for educational reform will at best only patch up the present system without bringing about the fundamental changes necessary, the author outlines a new design dividing up American schooling into two components: (1) a required core of basic education courses and (2) elective community education courses. (JBM)

Proposes a curricular model for historically black colleges and universities based on A. L. Locke's idea that critical value inquiry should be the principle of curricular revision and integration. Suggests a core curriculum of material identified by each discipline as necessary for all undergraduates. (SLD)

Prepared by the General Education (GE) Review Steering Committee of Massachusetts' Bunker Hill Community College in 1991, this guide provides a model of a Capstone course, a component of the College's newly developed GE Cornerstone Curriculum. Chapter 1 reviews the purpose of Capstone, a mandatory interdisciplinary course designed to integrate the…

In an attempt to revitalize and reform its curriculum, the Associate of Arts-Associate of Science (AA-AS) Degree Review Committee (DRC) of Connecticut's Norwalk Community College issued a curriculum report proposing a 21 credit, limited distributive core for the AS degree (which accounts for 80% of the college's degree recipients). This proposal…

West Virginia State College's course development for a new general education core curriculum is described in this report. The process of curricular change that led to the development of new courses entitled "Origins" (investigating the origins of the universe, earth, human life, the mind, and society) and "Race, Gender, and Human…

In reorganizing its core curriculum, Duquesne University (Pennsylvania) created a course that combined the required freshman composition and speech communication courses. A two-term pilot course offered eight hours of credit, meeting for one hour three times a week and for a two hour lab once a week. Oral readings were assigned in order to help…

A study was conducted at a women's college to compare contrasting ideas of general education curriculum requirements: the prescribed core curriculum in which all students take the same courses versus the distributive model in which students are required to choose a minimum number of courses within specified academic areas. Graduating seniors were…