Matthew Naven, Tim Murray, and Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl. Design of Core Curriculum in Liberal Arts Education
Liberal Arts education has come under scrutiny in recent years both in terms of its design and its applicability to the modern world. This has provided an impetus for re-evaluation of the core curriculum requirements of liberal arts schools. We propose an alternative approach to structuring the core curriculum that is centered around the guiding question "what kind of society do we want to live in and how do we design it?" Core curriculum classes would satisfy seven sub-questions addressing specific aspects of how to design a society one wants to live in as well as a first-year seminar on civil discourse that provides students with the skills to debate various societal designs.
When I was an assistant professor, my university decided to redesign their liberal arts core curriculum. As someone who believes in the liberal arts, attended a liberal arts university, and specializes in the economics of education, I decided to draft a curriculum. It seemed like a great way to use my research on education to make a positive lasting impact on an institution.
My initial core curriculum was similar to the prior core curriculum, but I realized what was lacking was an organizing principle. I eventually settled on the guiding question "How do we design a society we want to live in?", because I think that it is easy to take a successful society's culture for granted. Growing up in the United States in the 1990s, I lived in a prosperous and peaceful society and I assumed that things would always improve. I've learned, however, that societies do not always change for the better, and that it's possible for a society's culture and outcomes to change in a relatively short period of time. The curriculum included subquestions related to important societal questions such as "How do we agree upon what is true?" and "How do we allocate scarce resources?".
My university decided to implement another core curriculum, but I mentioned my idea to Valentina one day while grabbing beers after our joint economics seminar. Valentina liked the idea and brought in Tim, and they helped me flesh out the core ideas, add some background on the liberal arts, and think through the logistics of an actual required core curriculum. The final design is better for all of their input and hard work.
I believe knowing the purpose of an activity is important. Well-designed core curricula that lack an organizing principle will struggle to motivate students because they do not articulate the purpose of all the required courses. Our proposed curriculum centers around a guiding question that motivates all of the required courses and encourages students to think about various subquestions when taking core-curriculum classes. We believe this has the potential to reinvigorate interest in a liberal arts education. Universities are welcome to use our curriculum.