CORE CURRICULUM

The CORE Curriculum at King's College is that portion of the curriculum in which all students participate, no matter what their major. It is central to all undergraduate degrees at King's College. It lays the foundation for a liberal education that will be reinforced in the major program and continued throughout life.

CORE courses comprise a common educational experience which seeks to develop a community of learners, to provide opportunities for enlarging and deepening the classroom experience through the sharing of viewpoints and ideas, and to encourage a spirit of collegiality in the pursuit, discovery and transmission of that knowledge and truth that are essential to intellectual growth, moral maturity and personal fulfillment.

CORE courses are broadly based so that fundamental human issues and problems are approached from diverse viewpoints represented by a variety of disciplines. This emphasis on breadth offers students the opportunity to become familiar with differing methodologies and to see the unity of knowledge rather than viewing it as unrelated bits of information.

The coherence and integrity of knowledge is also made evident by the structure of the CORE Curriculum. The required CORE courses are divided into nine categories. Several categories mandate sequencing of courses, thus providing greater depth than would be possible in many general education programs. Each category has clear and specific liberal learning goals and objectives for all courses within it. These goals and objectives include numerous connections between categories.

The CORE Curriculum focuses in a deliberate and systematic manner on the following skills of liberal learning: Critical Thinking, Effective Writing, Effective Oral Communication, Library and Information Literacy, Computer Competence, Creative Thinking and Problem Solving, Quantitative Reasoning, and Moral Reasoning. CORE courses initiate the college-level development of these skills, which are further refined in courses required in major programs. The Comprehensive Assessment Program works with the CORE and major curricula to encourage students to see learning as cumulative, transferable and integrated.

A student must earn a minimum of 120 credit hours to be awarded the baccalaureate degree. The number of credit hours required for graduation may be higher in certain major programs or if the student elects to pursue a second major.