George C. Leef, American Council of Trustees and AlumniMay 2004 The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum Barry Latzer, American Council of Trustees and AlumniMay 2004
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently published these companion reports dealing with the importance and near extinction of a proper core curriculum at colleges and universities. In the first, author George C. Leef provides a guide to what an undergraduate core curriculum is and isn't, why a good one is important, and whose responsibility it is to ensure that students benefit from one. The latter half of this report describes actual core curricula in operation at fifteen colleges and universities that ACTA judges to have done a pretty good job of this. For the second report, The Hollow Core, author Barry Latzer surveyed 50 colleges in search of a "real" core curriculum - seven subjects that he and ACTA judge necessary for "every educated man and woman." (In case you're wondering: composition, U.S. government or American history, economics, foreign language, literature, math, and natural/physical science.) The news, as you might expect, is bleak: a quarter of the colleges in this group require none or just one of those subjects to be studied as part of their undergraduate core, and almost half require fewer than three. Thirty percent expect four or more of the seven. Among the least impressive performers are many of the country's most eminent colleges and universities. "Judging by our sample," ACTA concludes, "colleges and universities in the United States are not living up to their responsibilities to provide their students with a solid general education. It is time for those who care about the future of our young people - and the future of our nation - to become forceful advocates for a core curriculum." To order them, click here.
