1.Liberal Arts Core Curriculum Revised by vote of the faculty in spring 2009, the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum consists of four required interdisciplinary components: Legacies of the Ancient World, Challenges of Modernity, Scientific Perspectives on the World, and Communities and Identities. Students are also required to take one Global Engagements (GE) course drawn from departments and programs across the University, and two courses from each of the Areas of Inquiry: Human Thought and Expression; Social Relations, Institutions, and Agents; and Natural Sciences and Mathematics. A course taken to fulfill GE credit may also fulfill an Area of Inquiry Requirement. A fuller description of the Liberal Arts Core Curriculum Program may be found in the Catalogue,.
Colgate’s Core Curriculum continues to be an important part of the liberal arts curriculum, and faculty members coming to Colgate can expect to participate in the program. The Liberal Arts Core Curriculum is administered by the Division of University Studies.
2.First-Year Seminars One of the courses every first-year student takes during the fall term is the first-year seminar, designed to combine exploration of an academic subject with the opportunity for developing a closer student-faculty relationship than would otherwise be possible for students beginning their first term at Colgate. The seminars are normally capped at 18 students. The first-year seminar instructor becomes the student’s academic adviser for the first two years or until a student declares a major by the spring of the sophomore year (for more information on first-year student and sophomore advising, see Section III.J.4). Many first-year seminars are drawn from the core curriculum and satisfy a requirement within the liberal arts core curriculum. Other seminars serve as introductory departmental courses and count for concentration requirements, and still others fulfill Area of Inquiry requirements. Students receive a grade for the first-year seminar in the conventional manner.
Many members of the faculty teach in the first-year seminar program, since forty or so seminars are offered every fall. Because of the two-year advising responsibility, faculty members usually do not find it desirable to teach first-year seminars in consecutive years. Over a two- or three-year period, therefore, many continuing members of the faculty are involved in the first-year seminar program. Assignment of first-year seminar instructors is made by department chairs in consultation with members of their departments (see Section III.K.4.a).
The first-year seminar program is administered by the office of the dean of the faculty in coordination with the university studies division director.