I. Guidelines For Foundation Courses

Guidelines Relating to the Curriculum

Things to consider when designating courses as meeting the Foundations goal:

• Foundations courses should expose students to the usual topics, core concepts, standard methods or interpretation of the disciplines comprising each area (arts, science, humanities, social science)
• Foundations courses should explore the modes of inquiry associated with the disciplines comprising each area
• A Foundation course might be one which explores the disciplines within an area through their relevance to contemporary issues
• A Foundation course might be one which provides an integrated approach to (certain of) the disciplines within an area
• While all the courses in a given department are representative in some way of the discipline as a whole, the Curriculum Committee hopes that each department will think carefully about designating courses as "Foundational." We need to point out to students what we think are the most useful ways of acquiring a sense of our broad areas of inquiry, not simply affirm the disciplinary character of each of our courses. (And, of course, substitutions are always possible.)
• If a course is designated as representing a substantial exploration of core concepts or approaches in one of the four areas (i.e., as "foundational"), the Curriculum Committee will be hard-pressed to understand how it can simultaneously serve as a substantial exploration for a second area; that is, we expect a Foundation course to be designated within only one of our four areas.