Penn not alone in changing its academic reqs.

Duke, Swarthmore and others join Penn in its curricular re-evaulation. Across the country, various schools are upping their undergraduate requirements. Still others are softening theirs. And some institutions don't have core requirements at all. While their attitudes may differ, many major Universities are saying the same thing: we need to re-evaluate the quality of our general education. Last week's decision by the School of Arts and Sciences' faculty to test an experimental core curriculum in the College represents just a small facet of this greater trend within higher education today. "Curricular reform is a constant process at all universities all across the country," College of Arts and Sciences Dean Richard Beeman said. Duke University and the University of Chicago, for example, recently changed their undergraduate curriculums, while other institutions -- like Swarthmore College and Harvard University -- are continually examining their requirements. Many university officials say this investigation into undergraduate education is prompted by schools' concerns that their current requirements don't adequately prepare students for the future. And several university officials said recent changes may have been partially spurred by technological and scientific advances in knowledge. Beeman said institutions might be undertaking these revisions now because of the "extraordinarily rapid" changes taking place in our "knowledge base," specifically in areas of science and technology. Duke will implement a more regimented curriculum for all incoming freshmen this fall. The school altered its requirements after finding that previous flexible class options often meant that students weren't studying enough subjects, Curriculum Review Committee Chairperson Peter Lange said in a letter to faculty about the curriculum. Duke's Curriculum 2000, which has been in the works for several years, will demand that students take three classes in each of four specific areas of knowledge -- Arts and Literature, Civilizations, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences and Mathematics -- according to Duke's Trinity College Humanities Associate Dean Ellen Wittig. Under the old curriculum, students could avoid studying in one of the four. Duke 2000, which "stresses the interdisciplinarian of the curriculum," will also intensify undergraduate research experience -- building on the strength of the institution, she added. Penn also aims to make undergraduate education more focused on interdisciplinary study, with an emphasis on research, through the pilot curriculum. The Committee on Undergraduate Education, which originally proposed Penn's curriculum overhaul last April, looked at Duke's changes but did not adopt their "more complex" matrix model, according to CUE Chairperson Frank Warner. Calling Duke's program "very desirable" but too complicated, Warner said Penn's model -- which will reduce the current General Requirement from 10 narrowly focused classes to four broader, interdisciplinary ones -- is simpler. "There are lots of ways to write a good education," Warner noted, adding "I don't think we're trying to be more or less stringent, we're trying to be more effective." While Penn plans to test its new General Requirement on 200 students a year for the next five years, the University of Chicago has already approved a reduction in requirements for all of its students entering the school in 1999. According to the University of Chicago Chronicle, the new curriculum will increase opportunities for electives while maintaining Chicago's commitment to general education. The new program concentrates requirements in the first two years of undergraduate study. Currently, students take longer than two years to complete their requirements. Chicago will also place a focus on interdisciplinary learning and will require foreign language proficiency. Columbia University Core Curriculum Director Eileen Gillooly said that moves like Chicago's curriculum revision show that schools are becoming more competitive. "Chicago has a reputation for being very rigorous and not a terribly fun place to go," Gillooly said. According to Gillooly, Columbia's strict but popular core -- consisting of five common courses and other distributions -- will likely not decrease in requirements and may actually add in a science element. Gillooly stressed that students appreciate the core at Columbia and that the school has no plans to soften it. "The core identifies Columbia," Gillooly said. "[Students] are getting a broad, basic, but also connected curriculum." She added that the core gives students a sense of mastery over a larger realm of knowledge. And Swarthmore College, an institution without a common core, is currently reviewing its graduation requirements, with an eye towards increasing them, according to Provost Jennie Keith. Keith attributed nationwide curricular reform to concerns about "fragmentation of the educational program" for undergraduates. "This may be one motivation for the re-introduction of core curricula in some institutions," Keith said.