Frequently Asked Questions

The existing curriculum has been in place since the 1990s and is in serious need of modernization. Feedback from faculty across the College suggests many areas for improvement. The curriculum does not communicate its value or purpose. It reinforces rigid disciplinary boundaries, undervalues interdisciplinary study, and permits haphazard student choice. The curriculum lacks the framing around complex questions and challenges that is well represented at our peer institutions. Finally, the curriculum offers insufficient attention to developing writing and quantitative literacy. Faculty across the College have observed that some students need individual remediation in writing and quantitation even in their junior and senior years. Overall, it is time for CAS to embrace a coherent, thoughtful, 21st-century curriculum that reflects the College’s mission and values and enhances our students’ liberal arts experience.

The committee analyzed the degree requirements for all majors and degree programs in the College, and examined course histories for select students in a variety of majors and degree programs. Based on these analyses, we are confident that students will be able to accomplish the requirements of the Liberal Arts Curriculum in addition to their individualized program of study. A full report of these analyses can be found on the Feasibility Studies page.

It is also important to recognize that the College has a long standing practice of permitting degree exceptions when needed. We expect that this practice will continue so that all majors can graduate in the short term. If consistent problems with students meeting requirements arise, adjustments to the curriculum may be considered.

Yes and no. The proposal does include 2 additional course requirements and more structure around course selections in order to satisfy the W, Q, and CC encounters. However, the proposal has very few required classes - essentially WRT 001 and WRT 002 only. All of the other courses in the curriculum will be chosen by the student from among many options that meet the goals of the disciplinary perspectives and encounters. We suggest that this proposal accomplishes an appropriate balance between structure and student choice.

Much of the proposed curriculum is very similar in structure to our current system and, thus, should not pose new advising challenges. The Encounters system is new and faculty advisors will need to adapt to it. However, this is not insurmountable. Most of the advising challenges can be ameliorated by improving the resources for students and the training structure for advising. For example, Jeremy Littau and Beth Pelton have already greatly improved the advising resources to enhance the current first year advising system. The CAS Dean’s Office has also expressed a commitment to supporting the advising process under the new curriculum. One resource we hope to provide is a clear mechanism for identifying courses that would meet the various requirements of the curriculum. Many schools provide easily navigable online lists that streamline the process of identifying courses in a given semester that meet particular sets of requirements (e.g., courses in Fall 2024 that fulfill both the “Investigating the Social World” and a Q encounter). The committee has also learned that RAS will be implementing a new degree audit system that will improve functionality and support advising and student planning. These kinds of resources will help both faculty advisors and students navigate the new curriculum. While it will take some time and effort for faculty to learn about and adapt to the new curriculum, the new curriculum should not be any more complicated to advise than our current system.

The committee benchmarked a set of 15 aspirational peers. Our requirement of 12 courses is below the median (14 courses). 11 of the 15 peer institutions require more courses -- including 4 schools with as many as 15-16 requirements. 1 school requires the same number of courses and 3 require fewer.

This seems highly unlikely. The sense from the CAS Advising Center is that students do not look at core curriculum requirements when selecting colleges. If they do, we would argue that the proposed curriculum would look far more interesting and modern than the existing system. Although there may be students looking for schools with fewer requirements, they will be hard pressed to find many choices in our peer group. There are some out there (e.g., Brown) but there aren’t many other schools in our peer group with fewer core curriculum requirements.

We acknowledge the importance in a liberal arts education of deep grounding in a discipline, which is why students select a major. The proposal does nothing to change the disciplinary requirements within majors. Disciplinary perspectives also remain the most significant part of the proposed curriculum outside of the major. Where the proposal encourages multi- or interdisciplinarity is in the Big Questions seminars and in acknowledging that writing, quantitative reasoning, and contemporary challenges span disciplines. This is consistent with an emphasis at the broader University level on interdisciplinarity as a distinctive and exciting aspect of Lehigh’s identity. The interdisciplinary elements of the proposed curriculum create coherence across the College and connect to this broader University goal.

Not exactly. For the most part, the curriculum proposal aims to provide a framework for students to achieve a set of common learning objectives by navigating the existing courses in the College. Thus, the intent of the proposal is to utilize the extensive work faculty have already put into developing their courses and to give faculty the opportunity to highlight exciting and relevant aspects of their courses that may not have been recognized previously (e.g., interdisciplinarity, focused instruction in writing or quantitation). In response to the new curriculum, we hope that faculty will also choose to develop co-taught Big Questions seminars, create new disciplinary perspectives courses, or revamp existing courses to meet a W, Q, and/or CC encounter. However this level of additional work would be at the initiative of the individual faculty member. The College may also develop incentives for these activities, such as stipends for new course development.

The proposed curriculum largely does not change policies regarding AP credit, transfer courses, or study abroad.

As in current practice, departments and programs determine how credit for their courses is earned based on AP scores. The proposal specifies changes to how First-Year Writing credit is earned based on AP, IB, ACT, and SAT scores (see Curriculum Components). These proposed changes were developed in collaboration with the First-Year Writing Program Director.

The catalog langauge also includes the following statement regarding transfer and study abroad courses: "Transfer and study abroad courses may be used to satisfy any aspects of the Liberal Arts Program provided that the courses meet the criteria described in the Designating Courses section." This is largely consistent with current practice.

Finally, the proposed change to the number of credits required in each Disciplinary Perspective from 8 to 7 will help accommodate transfer and study abroad courses that are often offered for 3 credits instead of 4.

Encounters will be sourced from the current courses described in the catalog. A significant number of existing courses already convey the content needed for W, Q, and CC encounters. (See the Feasibility Studies.) We hope that this new curricular structure will also create a culture where faculty expand the writing, quantitative reasoning, and/or contemporary challenges in their courses moving forward.

Faculty will designate courses with encounters labels by comparing the course objectives, student learning outcomes, and syllabus with descriptions provided in the Course Catalog:

Courses designated W have a specific learning outcome dedicated to developing writing skills. Writing is a focal component of the course, either through at least one substantial module or assignment dedicated to developing writing skills or through several writing assignments occurring throughout the course. W encounters should provide opportunities for feedback and revision or improvement through a sequence of similar assignments.

Courses designated with a Q have a specific learning outcome dedicated to developing quantitative reasoning skills. Quantitative reasoning is a focal component of the course, either through at least one substantial module or assignment dedicated to developing quantitative reasoning or through several assignments or activities occurring throughout the course. Q encounters should guide students to interpret or use numerical information properly, or to understand and justify the models and algorithms necessary to do so.

Courses designated with a CC have a specific learning outcome dedicated to addressing and building comprehension of complex, critically important, large-scale and/or socially significant contemporary issues. A key feature of contemporary challenges is that they are dynamic and evolve over time. Thus, the College of Arts and Sciences faculty establish a set of focal contemporary challenges, and re-evaluate them periodically to ensure the topics remain current. The three current challenges are (1) Social Difference and Power (analysis of social identity and structural inequities in the distribution of resources, power, and status); (2) Sustainability (analysis of the complex convergence of environmental, social, and economic factors impacting our planet, communities, and current and future generations); (3) Conflict and Security (analysis of the causes and consequences of conflict and cooperation at the interpersonal, organizational, national, and global level). Courses with a specific learning outcome dedicated to one of these three topics are assigned the CC attribute.

The proposal aims to be flexible about what kinds of experiences satisfy W, Q, and CC encounters. What is critical is that the experience meets the objectives laid out for the relevant encounter. The proposal specifies that 3 to 4 credit courses can satisfy up to 2 encounters and 1 to 2 credit courses and Big Questions Seminars can satisfy up to 1. Encounters courses can appear in the Disciplinary Perspectives, major coursework, minor coursework, free electives, etc. The proposal also recognizes that research experiences can provide valuable ways to accomplish some encounters. So, in cases where the learning goals for the research experience are aligned with the objectives for a given encounter, research experiences can also satisfy encounters.

No. Currently, WI courses have stringent requirements and place a significant burden on the small number of faculty who teach them. Writing encounters are intended to happen less intensively and more often throughout a student’s program of studies, and would replace the existing WI system. This new designation thus provides more opportunities for students to practice and hone their writing skills and distributes the instruction of writing more broadly among faculty. Courses designated as providing writing encounters will have a specific learning outcome dedicated to improving student writing, but how the writing happens (length, subject, style, audience) is up to the instructor, and can be discipline-specific. In addition, while feedback and revision remain important, unlike for WI courses, feedback can take many forms--including general class feedback and peer review, in addition to instructor feedback.

The contemporary challenges part of the proposal specifies that the curriculum should highlight a set of 3-4 focal contemporary challenges for a period of 5-10 years. Importantly, these contemporary challenges should be larger and more complex than those that occur in any one discipline. Thus, while all disciplines address their own sets of contemporary issues, the contemporary challenges highlighted in the curriculum should transcend disciplinary boundaries so that understanding and tackling them requires insight from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

The 3 contemporary challenges listed in the proposal (Social Difference and Power, Sustainability, Conflict and Security) are the committee’s recommendations for the first set of focal challenges. These selections were based on (1) the urgency of these concerns in modern society, (2) the need for education in these areas in order to equip students to foster an equitable, just, sustainable, and harmonious society, (3) the existing strengths of these areas within current CAS faculty’s teaching and scholarship, and (4) the alignment of these issues with larger University and College initiatives (i.e., the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Plan, the Sustainability Strategic Plan). Importantly, this part of the curriculum is designed to be shaped and revised based on faculty input. This proposed design allows for the possibility of adding a fourth contemporary challenge after the curriculum is implemented if faculty are in favor of doing so.

Because contemporary challenges evolve over time, a key feature of the “Contemporary Challenges” requirement is that the designated challenges are designed to change over time without the need for a major structural revision to the curriculum. The proposal envisions re-evaluation of the contemporary challenges every 5-10 years.

The proposal defines big questions as complex questions that have no simple or obvious answer. These can include the deep enduring questions that humanity has grappled with for ages or emerging questions of today. Thus, Big Questions seminars can address any big question. They are not limited to the topics listed as contemporary challenges.

The proposal encourages Big Questions Seminars to include some element of multidisciplinarity because big questions transcend disciplines. To achieve multidisciplinarity, Big Questions Seminars are encouraged to include readings/content from more than one discipline and/or a guest speaker or discussion leader from outside the instructor’s discipline. In addition, co-teaching is an ideal way to achieve multidisciplinarity. However, co-teaching is not required for Big Questions Seminars.

The proposal envisions a robust form of co-teaching for Big Questions Seminars in which both instructors are fully engaged in developing course content, delivering course material, and participating in class meetings. For this kind of co-teaching to work, the committee recommends that it is critical that both faculty members receive credit for instructing a full course.

The purpose behind the change in the Disciplinary Perspectives categories is not to double the Humanities requirement, but rather to ensure that students are experiencing both interpretive and literature-based as well as creative and expressive forms of inquiry as part of their liberal arts education. These are quite different forms of inquiry and both are necessary parts of a university education. However, the existing system conflates these disciplines by lumping both the arts and the humanities into the “Humanities” category. The proposal aims to correct this problematic conflation and provide robust opportunities for all CAS students to learn about the humanities, languages, and arts.

The proposed curriculum is for CAS only. The proposal says nothing about what will happen in the other colleges as our requirements are completely independent of theirs and we have no control over their curricula. One logical choice would be that the other colleges continue using the existing “Humanities” designation in their requirements to encompass courses spanning both the “Interpreting and Understanding Human Experience” and “Creating and Expressing through Arts and Languages” disciplinary perspectives. More broadly, because the proposed curriculum overwhelmingly makes use of courses that already exist in the CAS catalog, the courses we have should continue to serve the other colleges.

Yes. For example, we expect that some Economics courses may be designated as Investigating the Social World, and perhaps also as quantitative reasoning encounters. Other courses offered by the other colleges that are accessible to CAS students may also receive Disciplinary Perspectives and/or Encounters designations.