Specialized Knowledge

The General/Integrative Knowledge emphasized elsewhere must also be associated with specialized knowledge. Students necessarily combine depth and breadth. A good curriculum neglects neither. Critically, a good curriculum fosters the student's ability to place specialized knowledge in a broader context.

· The DQM recognizes that the specialized knowledge that a student gains in a Major must not be isolated. Rather the student should learn how to integrate this knowledge with that from other areas of inquiry. As noted above, this can only be achieved through exposure to strategies for integration.

· The CM report urges each program to articulate its civic goals, in part so that students can map an education that achieves their desired civics education. While this recommendation is valuable [The Teagle Foundation has sponsored a recent program in which scholars from a handful of disciplines produced white papers on how their disciplines could better pursue citizenship goals], we must not lose sight of the fact that complex social problems require interdisciplinary solutions. And students cannot be expected to ‘map’ their education unless first given some guidance on the contours of the academic enterprise (see previous section).

· While disciplines and interdisciplines can and should be encouraged to place the undergraduate major in context, this task should not be left entirely to them. Students need to be taught integrative techniques. And where possible students should be gathered in capstone courses in which students from different majors collaborate in addressing particular problems or themes.