1

Bruno Theiss

Dr. Don Ester

MUSE 743

March 15 2021

Core Curriculum Talking Points

Position #2:​ The core curriculum ​might​ be inappropriate and ​might​ need to be modified,

in a case-by-case manner.

Supporting Points

Point #1: ​A reform of the traditional core curriculum within an institution can result in a new

curriculum that is tailored to better suit the institution’s goals. The change in Montana State

University from the traditional core curriculum to a new approach to the core curriculum (CORE

2.0, as they call it) involved extensive dialogue between a high number of faculty, as well as

experiments with and feedback from students - a process which generated a new curriculum that

matched MSU’s particularities (as measured by faculty and student satisfaction) better than the

previous, traditional core curriculum. (Pittendrigh, 2007)

Point #2: ​Any core curriculum is a promotion of breadth of knowledge, as opposed to depth

alone. Thus, the entire elimination of it is undesirable. According to Meiklejohn (1981):

“Intelligence is, it seems, readiness for any human situation; it is the power, wherever one

goes, of being able to see, in any set of circumstances, the best response which a human being
 2

can make to those circumstances. And the two constituents of that power would seem to be, first,

a sense of human values, and second, a capacity for judging situations as furnishing possibilities

for the realizing of those values.”

Specific knowledge can be great within the world of its specific area, but it is not true that all

specific areas are able to encompass, on their own, the values brought to light by Meiklejohn.

Not promoting breadth in students’ knowledge might leave these students alone in facing serious

problems outside of their specific area - perhaps problems that can cost a lot more time and

financial resources than what a required gen ed curriculum adds to undergraduate education.

As an example: social misconducts, now more than ever (rightfully so), might result in the

complete interruption of an academic career, not to mention unnecessary suffering in other

human beings - so, why not raising questions and requiring students to think about ethics and

society during their undergraduate education?

Point #3: ​Pittendrigh (2007) writes about the curriculum of Montana State University: “By 1998,

the core curriculum had become a menu of almost 200 largely unrelated courses, many of which

served as introductions to specific majors and were taught in large lecture format.”

Looking at Ball State University’s core curriculum in 2021, this quotation seems to describe it

well. It is hard to predict whether students will be able to select from this extensive list (with

many Introduction to… courses) a combination that optimally promotes the values in teaching of

Meiklejohn (mentioned in Point #2). For instance, the selection of too many “introductions”

fragments learning and creates a breadth over depth issue, and the one-size-fits-all distribution of
 3

credits (this many credits for this area, this many credits for that area) delineated by the

University might not work for all areas.

Counterpoints

Counterpoint #1: ​Reform in general education is immensely difficult. “Because general

education is deeply enmeshed in the culture of the institution, change must encompass not only

the structure of the curriculum but also the values, ideologies, and basic assumptions of members

of the institution” (Pittendrigh, 2007). Furthermore, the risks of changing are overwhelming:

what works for one university might not work for another, considering that each university has

its unique characteristics, making the implementation of external models a questionable idea

Replica​: While the successful transformation of the curriculum might depend on “a critical mass

of faculty, along with key campus administrators, agreeing to pursue a new model of general

education” (Pittendrigh, 2007), what should matter is whether the reform brings positive results

in the long run or not. Risks can be dealt with by experimenting with small changes and slowly

shifting from a traditional model to a new model. The risk of keeping models unchanged should

also be considered.

Counterpoint #2: ​There is a common body of knowledge all educated persons should possess,

and the traditional core curriculum is designed to convey this knowledge (Pittendrigh, 2007).
 4

Replica: ​Faculty is unlikely to agree about what constitutes the essential knowledge in their

discipline, and even if the common set of knowledge could be identified and agreed on, the hours

of instruction allotted to general education (the core curriculum) is unlikely to fit foundational

knowledge of arts, sciences and humanities. Increasing this number of hours is also not desirable,

since it would be at the expense of the time of instruction in students' primary area (Pittendrigh,

2007).

Counterpoint #3​: The concept of a core curriculum should be eliminated. A popular view

amongst students is that high school is already focused on general education, and that without the

core curriculum in college the students could complete an undergraduate degree in less time than

what it takes today, and in consequence pay less for their education (Hanstedt, 2020).

Replica: ​On the essence of this idea is the belief that area-specific knowledge suffices in the

development of a professional - or that, at least, high school general education suffices. While

my point was already stated for the promotion of intelligence and human values through general

education, it did not address the fact that lots of general education happen before the

undergraduate level. However, it is questionable whether students always enter the university

with adequate general education. As Hanstedt (2020) notes, “Many of them don’t. The reasons

for this include an overdependence on standardized testing that places an emphasis on content

memorization over meaningful application of that content in complex contexts.”

 5

Undergraduate education may need to be the moment where this meaningful application is done

either remedially, dealing with deficiencies from high school education, or with more depth

and/or breadth.

Works Cited

​ even Locks Press Inc., 1981

Meiklejohn, Alexander. ​The Experimental College. S

Pittendrigh, Adele. “Reinventing the Core: Community, Dialogue, and Change.” ​The

Journal of General Education​, vol. 56, no. 1, 2007, pp. 34–56.,

doi:10.1353/jge.2007.0013.

Hanstedt, Paul. ​Higher Ed Needs to Redesign Gen Ed for the Real World (Opinion),​

2020.

www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/02/10/higher-ed-needs-redesign-gen-ed-real-worl

d-opinion.