State proposes changes to colleges' core curriculum

The core includes social sciences; communication skills; natural sciences, math and technology; and humanities, fine arts and ethics. Local colleges decide which courses fit each category.

The current core dictates exactly how many credits students must take in each area.

The revised policy sets minimums and enables each school to decide how to satisfy them. This gives college leaders the freedom to add courses in one area and develop a focus  -- such as fine arts or technology -- that corresponds to their institution's mission.

"This will give students more options and allow them to choose institutions that fit their needs," said George Rainbolt, chairman of the Core Curriculum Evaluation Committee and a philosophy professor at Georgia State University.

The revised policy keeps the number of required core credit hours at 42. Most classes are worth three credit hours (science classes with labs often are worth four). Forty-two semester hours are roughly equivalent to three full-time semesters, and students take most of the core courses during their first two years in school.

The proposal also establishes rules to guarantee that credits earned at one college are accepted at all of the system's 35 institutions.

Currently credits transfer only if students completed all the core requirements in a specific area. So if a student met the 12-hour requirement in social sciences, all the credits would transfer. If a student earned 11 of the 12, none would transfer. The proposed rules recognize partial completion in most cases.

Another major change requires colleges to develop ways to measure whether their courses meet the goals of each core area.

These assessments could be handled in different ways, such as final exams, adding questions to tests professors already give or requiring students to complete additional assignments, said Susan Herbst, chief academic officer for the state university system. The state will collect the data and the material will be used by accrediting agencies that review each college, she said.

The revisions also require students to study global perspectives and critical thinking skills. A class on world religions, for example, could count as a humanities course and one that meets the global perspectives requirement. Colleges already offer core courses that offer a U.S. perspective, such as colonial literature, but those courses will be better identified, Herbst said.  To fulfill core requirements, students will be required to take at least one U.S. course and one global course.

Four-year colleges would implement the changes by fall 2011. Two-year institutions would have until fall 2012 so they can align their programs with those at four-year colleges.