From the Chronicle of Higher Education: The University of Texas at Austin unveiled plans... for a sweeping makeover of its undergraduate core curriculum, replacing a sprawling system of hundreds of course options with a more prescriptive menu organized around foundational texts, broad fields of study, and what the university calls the “fundamental questions and themes” of human life. The proposal, detailed by President Jim Davis during a meeting of the university system’s Board of Regents, would reduce the number of credit hours in the core curriculum, from 42 to 36. Some core credit designations are slated to be replaced with categories such as “Western Civilization,” “Masterworks of Literature,” “Great Questions of Human Life,” “Principles of American Politics,” and “Computer Science & AI.”
That plan is laid out in a much-anticipated report... from a 22-member faculty task force whose members Davis selected in the fall to “identify gaps in quality, rigor, or intellectual cohesion” in UT-Austin’s core and propose solutions. Administrators hope to implement the new curriculum by the fall of 2028. The goal, Davis told regents, is to “wipe the slate clean and rewrite the core from the ground up,” noting that the existing system “has devolved over time into a haphazard grab bag of classes.”
The proposed changes at the state’s flagship come as Texas universities adjust to Senate Bill 37, which gives governing boards greater control over academic offerings. The University of Houston, Texas A&M University, and Texas Tech University have announced similar reviews of their core curricula; the latter two systems have faced federal lawsuits challenging restrictions on course content...
Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/republicans-want-colleges-to-emphasize-western-civ-ut-austin-plans-to-do-just-that.
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