Core Curriculum

The core curriculum offers students an education informed by Catholic tradition, by the liberal arts and sciences, and by the central values of Sinsinawa Dominican-sponsored institutions: truth, compassion, justice, partnership and community. This education fosters in students an understanding of themselves and others as intellectual, moral and religious persons. In distinctive ways, the core curriculum helps students meet the ten central learning goals for all Dominican undergraduates.

The core curriculum consists of:

• Foundations: Courses that equip students with basic skills fundamental to all other facets of the undergraduate course of study;
• Liberal Arts and Sciences Seminars: Courses that apply multiple perspectives to the “big” questions and help students integrate what they are learning elsewhere;
• Area Studies: Courses that introduce students to area studies or “disciplines” practiced by scholars as they explore materials and apply methods of inquiry particular to their academic field; and
• Multicultural Course: Engagement of diverse cultures in the United States or beyond its borders.

Foundations

Each student before graduation must demonstrate:

1. The ability to read with understanding and to communicate in writing. This requirement may be met by placement examination or by completing with a passing grade college-level course work in writing equivalent to English 102;
2. The ability to understand and use mathematics. This requirement may be met by placement examination or by completing with a passing grade college-level course work equivalent to Mathematics 130, 150, 160 or 170;
3. The ability to understand the connections between human languages and specific cultures and the ability to interact appropriately with people of another culture. This requirement may be met by placement examination or by completing with a passing grade a foreign language course at the level of 102. Foreign nationals educated abroad at the high school level are exempt from the requirement;
4. The ability to find, evaluate and use information effectively; that is, to acquire information literacy. Introduction to these skills will take place in English 102, where students will learn the basics of library research, including the ability to locate both print and electronic resources by searching library databases for articles and books. They will also learn how to use the Internet for academic purposes, how to evaluate information critically, and how to use information ethically and legally. Students who do not take English 102 at Dominican University will be required to complete an Information Access Workshop during their first semester at Dominican; and
5. The ability to understand and use computers and their applications. This requirement may be met by a proficiency examination or by completing with a passing grade CIS 120 or its equivalent.

Liberal Arts and Sciences Seminars

Each year, students must enroll in and complete with a passing grade an integrative seminar. According to their class standing, they may choose from a wide variety of seminars with some elements in common but offered by instructors representing alternative approaches to the general topics listed below. Seminars invite students to integrate multiple perspectives on personal, social and philosophical issues by reading, discussing and writing about the seminar topic.

• Freshman Seminar: Dimensions of the Self
• Sophomore Seminar: Diversity, Culture and Community
• Junior Seminar: Technology, Work and Leisure
• Senior Seminar: Virtues and Values

All entering freshmen enroll in the freshman seminar during their first semester; the seminar instructor is their academic advisor for the first year. Transfer students begin the seminar sequence at the point at which they enter the university (i.e., students who transfer as sophomores must complete a sophomore, junior and senior seminar; junior transfer students must complete a junior and a senior seminar). A student is classified as a sophomore if 28 semester hours have been completed, as a junior if 60 semester hours have been completed, and as a senior if 90 semester hours have been completed. For purposes of determining the point of entry to the seminar sequence, however, transfer students who enter with total semester hours within seven of a higher classification begin the seminar sequence at that higher classification (i.e., students entering the university with 21 hours begin the sequence with the sophomore seminar; students entering with 53 hours begin the sequence with the junior seminar; students entering with 83 hours are required to complete only the senior seminar). Students studying abroad for a full academic year are exempt from that year’s seminar requirement.