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Since 1928, Colgate's Liberal Arts Core Curriculum has been recognized as one of the most ambitious and elegant general education programs in the country.
The core explores timeless questions about the human experience and what it means to be an educated person. Through research, writing, and the close reading of classic texts, students develop the skills of empathy, informed, debate, and critical thinking that are required of global citizens.
Students discuss value of the core curriculum
Students are required to take four core classes in any order by the end of the sophomore year:
1. Legacies of the Ancient World is the study of texts from the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world that have had lasting philosophical, political, religious, and artistic influence. These texts articulate perennial issues: the nature of the human and the divine; the virtues and the good life; the true, the just, and the beautiful; and the difference between subjective opinion and objective knowledge.
2. In Challenges of Modernity, students conduct an interdisciplinary study of primary texts from the period between 1750 and the present, leading to an understanding of the impact on the modern world of urbanization, industrialization, capitalism, imperialism, and scientific discovery.
3. Students choose one course from the Communities and Identities category, ensuring they gain a textured understanding of the identities, cultures, and human experience inherent in particular communities and regions of the world. (Course subject examples include North American Indians, Ethiopia, Russia at the Crossroads of East and West, and The Arctic.)
4. One course from the Scientific Perspectives on the World category helps students apply their growing understanding of scientific methods to an issue in society or outside of the realm of natural sciences and mathematics. (Course examples include The Science of Art, Earth Resources, Genes and Human Fate, and Sport and the Scientific Method.) In addition to the four core classes, all students are required to take at least one of many courses that carry the Global Engagements designation. Such courses ask students to analyze the conditions and effects of cross-cultural interaction, so that they will be prepared to responsibly confront the challenges of the 21 century.
And in order to foster breadth, an Areas of Inquiry requirement ensures that students take six courses from a range of disciplines. This section is divided into three areas: Human Thought and Expression; Social Relations, Institutions, and Agents; and Natural Sciences and Mathematics.