While all North Carolina colleges and universities claim
that they require liberal arts students to take courses in such “core” subjects
as composition, mathematics and science, some provide exemptions from core
requirements or allow a range of options so broad that the “core” is
effectively lost, a new survey shows.
Released by the John
William Pope Center
for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit public policy research organization,
the survey examines core course requirements at 48 of the 54 accredited
baccalaureate colleges and universities in the state.
The core subjects are composition, economics, foreign
language, literature, mathematics, science and U.S.
history or government.
The data were compiled and analyzed by the American Council
of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), an independent non-profit organization that
works with trustees, alumni, and education leaders across the United
States. ACTA’s “What Will They Learn?”
database currently includes curricula data for more than 750 colleges and
universities around the country, including the 48 North Carolina schools. The
database can be found online at the following web site: www.WhatWillTheyLearn.com.
In North Carolina,
as elsewhere, what students are required to learn depends on the college.
While ACTA didn’t find a single North Carolina school that
requires students to take courses in all seven core subject areas, it did find
one school — Wingate University — that requires students to take courses in six
of the seven, earning Wingate top honors in the survey, a grade of “A.” Nationwide, just 17 other schools have received grades of “A.”
Among the other Baptist and historically Baptist schools, Campbell,
Chowan, Gardner-Webb and Meredith College
received Bs. Among these Campbell requires students take five courses from the
seven core areas. The others only require four.
Mars Hill
College received a C, and Wake
Forest University
received a D.
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