Revised liberal arts core approved
By Thomas Regan
A new core designed to provide added practice in fundamental skills was passed by a 5-to-2 vote on March 31 by the Liberal Arts and Sciences Committee on Academic Policy (LASCAP).
The core will be phased in over a three-year span beginning in the fall of 2017, according to the proposal. However, the associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts, Education and Sciences, Jonathan Millen, said there will not be any immediate action just yet.
“The next step is for the task force members to get together and find out what the next step is going to be,” he said. “I would say the first thing we need to do is go back to the [proposal] document meticulously now and make sure that the final version that is submitted is the best reflection of what we’ve proposed.”
Millen assured that while some current students might be marginally affected, but it will not affect their ability to graduate.
“Certainly it’s not going to impact juniors and seniors, and it’s hard to imagine how sophomores would be impacted. The idea is to phase in the model, going after what you might call low-hanging fruit first, building in those options that will not slow down anybody’s progress toward graduation. In no way, shape or form do we envision this as negatively impacting any current student’s progress toward graduation.”
