A Core Curriculum is a set or sequence of courses that every undergraduate student takes, regardless of their major. At Nazareth the goals of these courses are as follows:

(1) To provide you with a set of tools and skills that will enable you to be independent thinkers, problem solvers, superior communicators, and able to use and evaluate information from a variety of sources

(2) To provide you with opportunities to explore and reflect on the ethical, aesthetic, spiritual and intellectual values that make you who you are, and those of others--both those nearby and those from other cultures and countries.

(1) A First Year Seminar in which you explore an Enduring Question and are introduced to a discipline, all in a small group setting.

(2) An opportunity to explore a question that interests you in three integrated upper-level courses.

(3) An Experiential Learning Pathway that you choose that relates to either your work in the Core or your Major (e.g., Service Learning, Study Abroad, Undergraduate Research, Student Leadership, Clinical or Student Teaching).

If you are a current student, you need to complete the requirements of the old Core. But many of the courses that are being developed for the new Core are already being offered, and count towards the requirements of the old Core. For example, a new Perspectives-Enduring Questions course (e.g., PHL.Q 101) will count as a Perspectives I course, a Global course, and a Writing-Across-The Curriculum course.

Click here for a full list of the new courses that will count in the old Core.

The new courses are in the same eight areas as before (Mathematics, Natural Science, Social Science, History, Literature, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and the Visual & Performing Arts). They still introduce you to the content, method of inquiry and perspectives within that area of study. What is different is that they do this through the exploration of an Enduring Question like "What is Virtue?", "What is the relationship between freedom and creativity?", "How should humans treat other living creatures?", and so on.

Freshman Seminar, as it used to be, is no longer. Incoming first year students will now take one of their eight Perspective I courses in a special First Year Seminar version of a new Perspectives-Enduring Questions course. It will have the same basic content as the regular P-EQ course but in addition will be taught in a smaller seminar-style class, with more discussion and an emphasis on oral communication.

Incoming students will also take a special 1-credit course called 'Academic & College Success' in their first semester to help them get acquainted with what Nazareth College has to offer.