Running head: CASE STUDY ONE 1

Case Study One: Comparisons of Higher Education Core Curriculums

Brett Stachler

Loyola University Chicago

CASE STUDY ONE 2

Summary of Selected Universities

I choose to research University of California Berkeley, UC San Diego, Arizona State

University, New York University, and Northeastern Illinois University. All of these universities

are potential job sites, and all are unique in how their core curriculum’s pedagogy and centrality

to a university’s missions. A summary of each university’s core curriculum, mission statement,

and ease to access will be provided below.

University of California Berkeley

UC Berkeley (sometimes called ‘Cal’) is most know as the flagship university of the

University of California system, a diverse campus, and has a history of activism most notably the

Free Speech Movement of the 1960s (Link). UC Berkeley’s mission statement is titled as

Principles of Community, and are summarized as principles of teaching, research, and public

service. The site that lists UC Berkeley’s core curriculum was one of the easier sites to find,

since it is located on the screen for undergraduates interested in learning about the degrees

offered at UC Berkeley, the summary of which will be provided below.

Per the University of California Entry- Level Writing requirement, all UC Berkeley

students are required to Analytical Writing Placement Examination, or fulfill one of the many

fulfillment opportunities in secondary-education. If students do not fulfill the CELW

requirement, they are required to pass the examination in their first year, and begin their reading

and comprehension requirement in the following semester. The reading and comprehension

requirement is required for undergraduate students to develop college level writing skills, and

develop critical thinking skills. The College of Arts and Sciences requires students to take

additional classes that different between each department under CAS.

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UC Berkeley has an American History and Institutions requirement to satisfy that

students have an understanding of history and governmental institutions in the United States.

This requirement can be fulfilled in secondary-education courses, or can be satisfied by taking a

variety of American History courses at UC Berkeley, among other options. International

students may have to take AHI courses depending on a variety of factors, and are advised to

contact the registrar’s office to determine that.

UC Berkeley requires students to complete an American Cultures requirement at any

point during their undergraduate education. Introduced in 1991, the requirement is meant to

introduce students to the diversity of American people and students. The classes cut across a

variety of race/ethnic studies, sociology, and gender/sexualities studies.

University of California San Diego

USSD is another university alongside UC Berkeley in the University of California

system, and has a university mission that is similar by being student centered, research focused,

and service orientated. UCSD has a unique system of colleges, where students select the college

they want to be placed in based on its mission and core curriculum, regardless of their majors.

Although information about the college system, and the core curriculum of the colleges were

easy to find, if a student does not know about the college system they may have difficulty

accessing the core curriculum.

Curriculums are different across all six colleges; I choose to highlight the Eleanor

Roosevelt College. ERC’s core curriculum requires students to take two quantitative methods,

two natural sciences, one fine art, 0-4 courses in a foreign language (may be met by proficiency

or prior course work), and three regional specialization courses. On top of these courses,

students are also required to complete a five-quarter Making of the Modern World program,

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which is a comparative studies program examining the politics, economics, society, and religions

from pre-history to the 21st century. Embedded in MMW program is a two-quarter

developmental writing program.

Arizona State University

ASU’s core curriculum was the most difficult to find, wedged in the academic catalog,

which took many searches to find. ASU’s mission is divided into different goals: high academic

standards for colleges and research, leadership in academic excellence and accessibility, and

enhancing ASU’s local impact and social embeddedness. ASU’s core curriculum is divided into

two categories: university requirements including core general studies prerequisites, and

awareness studies, in addition to college/school major requirements.

The core curriculum within university requirements includes the general studies four core

areas: three credit hours of critical literacy and inquiry, six credit hours split between the two

subjects of mathematics and computer/statistics/quantitative applications, eight credit hours in

total (and six credit hours dedicated to one of the two) subjects of humanities, arts and design;

and social-behavioral sciences, and eight credit hours in total in subjects of natural science with a

lab component completing at least four of the eight. On top of the five core areas, students are

required to take subjects related to three distinct areas in awareness studies: appreciation of

cultural diversity within the contemporary U.S., the development of an international perspective

and an understanding of current human events through study of the past. In total, students are

required to take 29 credit hours in general studies of core curriculum.

New York University

NYU is a private university, with a mission to be a top tier research university, and to

have an academic and cultural embrace to diversity. NYU does not have a centralized core

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curriculum, and the autonomy of core curriculum is divided amongst the eleven different

colleges at NYU. Although, this is somewhat vaguely worded in their undergraduate studies

page, and could confuse students who do not understand the decentralization. I choose the

College of Arts and Science’s core curriculum, since that was where my undergraduate studies

were at Roosevelt University.

The core curriculum for CAS is divided into four liberal arts studies areas: humanities,

arts, social sciences, mathematics, and the natural sciences. For CAS’s website, you have to dig

deeper and deeper into the links they provide to grasp a fine sense of how many credit hours

students have to take for each course, and the courses that can be taken to fulfill the

requirements. The core curriculum for CAS amounts to a course year, and a semester.

Northeastern Illinois University

NEIU is a public, Hispanic Serving Institution in Chicago, and has mission values in

access, diversity, and academic scholarship. NEIU’s core curriculum is relatively easy to find on

the website, and is listed alongside other useful academic information. The university core

curriculum is divided into 39 credit hours between five subject areas. Fine arts, humanities, and

social/behavioral sciences majors are allowed waive up to six, and natural sciences majors can

waive all credit hours of their core curriculum areas if students major in those degrees.

Otherwise, students are required to complete six hours of fine arts courses, 12 hours of social and

behavioral studies, nine hours of natural sciences, nine hours of humanities, and three hours of

mathematics and quantitative reasoning.

Comparison of Core Curriculum

There is a vast amount of differences between these core curriculums, yet there are

similarities based on institutional types, missions, and pedagogy. Almost every university has a

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specific writing requirement, though each has different focus. ASU, NYU, and UC San Diego

have critical thinking and analytical development has a goal for their writing component, while

UC Berkley’s critical inquiry is housed in their American Cultures requirement. Almost all state

universities have a centralized core curriculum, requiring all first-year students to complete the

requirements for graduation, regardless of major or college. UC San Diego is an exception, and

is one of only a few colleges in the United States to have a European College system, with

different core curriculums available depending on students’ interests. This is common with other

California state schools, as they were strategically planned to have a small liberal arts college

feel despite their large student populations. NYU has a decentralized core curriculum, which is

somewhat common in private institutions, exceptions being mission driven institutions such as

Loyola. UC Berkeley, UC San Diego (in the ERC), and ASU had some form of diversity or

cultural related core or sequence of courses in their core curriculum. All of the universities that I

researched, in one form or another, had diversity/access/inclusion as part of their mission

statements, yet NYU (at least in CAS) and NEIU did not have these pieces as pedagogy in their

core curriculum.

Synthesis

Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (1999) argue that pedagogy historically has been placed

in a way that requires students to develop from learning nothing in a course, to learning

everything. This is not a conceivable goal, and Bransford, et al. (1999) argue for many different

types of learning environments, including active learning, community centered learning, and

formative assessments. Though the pedagogies of the courses are not delineated on the course

websites, some of the core curriculums include deviations from the intake and regurgitation

pedagogies of old, especially the courses involving critical thinking and cultural differences.

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Similarly, the pedagogies are not laid out in detail enough to contrast them with Fink’s (2003)

taxonomy of significant learning. Though many of the courses provide a foundation of

knowledge of ideas driven by the core curriculum, with the most common subjects being writing,

mathematics, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences (Fink, 2003). The human

dimension and caring may be present in other areas, but will certainly be present in cultural

based core curriculums (Fink, 2003). As Nilson (2010) notes, students develop cognitively from

thinking absolutely, to thinking uncertainly depending on authority and agency, to thinking

relatively. Though this journey may not be developmentally complete once a student graduates

from their undergraduate institution, the foundational knowledge present across the five core

curriculums may not stimulate cognitive development for students in duality, as these courses

may be similar to Bransford et al.’s (1999) examples of learning of taking in everything, and

displaying it through assessments. The critical thinking courses, or it the foundational courses

has critical elements to them, will facilitate students cognitive development (Nilson, 2010).

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References

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.) (1999). How People Learn: Brain,

Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Fink, L.D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to

developing college courses. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Nilson, L.B. (2010). Teaching at Its Best: A Research-Based Resource for College Instructors.

San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (Ch. 1 – 3)