Why the Core Course?
The Core Course must be important: It is the only course that everyone has to take at the University of Richmond. And it must be fundamental: Everyone has to take it in his or her first year. What job does this course do that is so important and fundamental?
The Core Course has three overlapping aims:
- to expand students’ knowledge and understanding of different ways in which thinkers and writers have interpreted human experience;
- to develop students’ ability to engage and compare texts through reading, thinking, writing, and discussing; and
- to establish a foundation for conversations on serious questions, among both students and faculty, that extend beyond the course itself.
How does it endeavor to achieve these aims?
The course pursues the first aim by assigning texts that display a wide array of perspectives on the meaning of life. The guiding assumption is that the examination of a variety of approaches to common human problems will give students a more sophisticated understanding of what is involved in making thoughtful sense out of experience. All of the texts in the course tend to focus on similar basic questions: Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why do people behave the way they do? To whom or to what do we owe responsibility? But since the writers of these texts look at these questions from varying vantage points (they live in different times and places, occupy different social positions, have different physical constitutions), they don’t treat them in the same way. In trying to comprehend why this writer sees the world this way, while that writer sees it that way, students should not only discover new possibilities for interpreting experience, but also develop a sensitivity to the challenges interpretation must confront. Whether they agree with them or not, the exercise of thinking through various writers’ visions of the world should give students a better understanding of the grounds for, and implications of, their own views.
The course pursues the second aim by having students do hard thinking about hard books. The guiding assumption here is that one of the best ways to learn to read, think, and express oneself well is to study the work of proven good readers, thinkers, and writers. By analyzing how gifted people think through tough problems on paper—by getting into conversations about such matters —one gets better at the job oneself. So instead of asking students to master a specific body of information, this course asks them to read and interpret a series of complex texts. The point is not to learn facts and formulas (although students will learn many new things), but to develop skills: how to absorb difficult material relatively quickly; how to see the way a text works; how to fashion clear, subtle, persuasive arguments for a position. Toward such ends, the course requires students to do considerable reading, conversing, and writing. Classes are kept small so that they will feel free to join in discussion and enjoy an instructor’s close attention to their intellectual growth.
The course pursues the third aim by maintaining a common syllabus for all sections and drawing its instructors from the entire University faculty. Because every first-year student is pretty much reading the same book at the same time (and more than likely a lot of upper-class students have read the book too), there is always something substantial for students to talk about, not just in class, but in the dining center and residence hall. Should we buy this argument for political reform? Should we love or hate this character? What exactly is this writer trying to say? And because the course is not the property of one department, there are faculty all over the University who are in on the discussion. The fact that faculty from a great variety of disciplines will approach the common material in different ways should enrich conversations about that material: Students can learn much by comparing the approach taken in their own section with that taken in others. By nourishing this common conversation, the course provides an important undergirding for all other courses at the University: No matter what course a student is taking, the instructor knows that the members of the class have read certain books and discussed certain issues that can serve as a common point of reference for what he or she has to say.
This is a demanding course, but also a rewarding and enjoyable one. It is designed to stretch students intellectually and conceptually and thus provide a solid foundation both for their further study at the University and for their reflective living after graduation. What could be more fundamental or more important?
