Core Curriculum’s global requirement sees mixed success
The NYU Abu Dhabi Bulletin for 2014-2015 states that the Core Curriculum “is distinguished by its cross cultural perspective.” For some students, this ...
Dec 6, 2014
The NYU Abu Dhabi Bulletin for 2014-2015 states that the Core Curriculum “is distinguished by its cross cultural perspective.” For some students, this may mean a class that covers essential traditions of intellectual thought from across the world. However, some classes avoid this requirement altogether.
An example of the latter could be The Relationship of Government and Religion, whose description notes that it covers the 16 words which establish a separation of governmental and religious authority in the United States of America, “The primary texts of the course are the opinions of the United States Supreme Court.”
Though not reflective of the course's quality, it’s applicability within the Core’s framework for cross cultural perspectives is complicated by the course’s sole focus on the United States.
Deputy Vice Chancellor Hillary Ballon noted that when the Core Curriculum was being developed in the first years of NYUAD, some courses which were designed to be within a major were made part of the Core to allow students to take a wide variety of cores in their first year:
“That conversion of courses that had been designed as disciplinary courses into cores was a pragmatic response to a first year problem.”
There are, however, a variety of ways in which professors approach the Core Curriculum and relate their teaching to its global aspirations. Associate Professor of History, Mark Swislocki, developed his core classes from foundational texts and universal questions.
“I tend either to think about a question that I have which I want the core to provide an answer [to], or I start with a document, or a text or a moment in time that I'm interested in and I look for comparable texts elsewhere as a way of gaining perspective on that.”
For Swislocki this approach to the Core allows him to approach subjects in a way that is not available elsewhere in the curriculum and in other curriculums in other universities.
“[The Core] gives me an opportunity to teach outside my area of expertise which I wouldn't necessarily have at other universities.”
For senior Corey Meyer, the Core presents both opportunities and drawbacks.
“We treat texts not written in Europe or the United States as little tokens; [we take] one or two pieces written in India, China, Japan and maybe South America ... and include it in the core course and pat ourselves on the back for achieving multiculturalism.”
However, for Meyer the Core also provided a way to break out of the regional silos of knowledge which can limit academic endeavor.
For some professors the Core provides an opportunity to stretch themselves into areas that their academic focus would not have otherwise allowed.
Assistant Professor of history Lauren Minsky, who is also a member of the Core Curriculum Review Committee, said, “I think it's actually very hard to understand ... the big questions by looking at a region, particularly treated in isolation.”
In its initial formation the core was designed to reflect the diversity of the student body at NYUAD by creating a global curriculum and attempting to solve problems of global significance by looking at global perspectives.
“We also felt that the curriculum needed to be aligned with who our students would be and where we were in the world … it was the same for the core in thinking through how do we represent the whole world and not just produce a general education program that had a strong Western bias,” said Ballon.
Both students and faculty share similar concerns about the Core but praised its attempt to move away from Western-centered academic discourse.
“I think that it is a positive step. I don't think that it's an easy transition,” said Meyer
“I think that it's a brilliant conception for a core curriculum in a school like we have [but] I don't think it has been fully implemented to the extent that it could be,” said Swislocki.
Connor Pearce is managing editor. Email him at cpearce@thegazelle.org.
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