LAS Core Curriculum

Columbia College Chicago is committed to offering students educational opportunities in the arts, communications and public information within the context of an enlightened and comprehensive liberal education. The Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) Core Curriculum is comprised of those requirements that are shared by all students at the college, thus it seeks to foster a community of teachers and learners that is complementary to individual majors. This curriculum assists students in examining the world through the approaches and content of subject fields such as history, the humanities, languages, mathematics, the social sciences and the sciences, utilizing diverse approaches and lenses that create a broad palette of knowledge to inspire and contextualize students' work and prepare them to be productive and engaged citizens of our nation and our world.

These requirements  apply to all students admitted to the college as of fall semester 2005. All continuing students admitted prior to fall semester 2005 are held to the previous General Education requirements.

LAS Core Objectives

Students should be able to:

• read for both comprehension and pleasure
• write as both a communicative and an expressive practice
• conduct research and as part of that process learn to measure, evaluate, and assess
• reflect on and appreciate human endeavor across cultures and eras
• consider and examine, historically and comparatively, human behavior, ethical issues, and social institutions
• reason scientifically and understand scientific methods
• understand and use basic mathematical concepts and skills
• utilize various tools of analysis to enable critical thinking
• express themselves orally in a clear and effective manner

The LAS Core Curriculum is distributed through four rubrics:

I. Foundations of Communication: Knowledge and Practices
Students will read for comprehension, pleasure, and to develop their critical thinking abilities. They will learn to write clearly and effectively and demonstrate an understanding of academic formatting conventions. They will learn to speak clearly and effectively and will develop an informed perspective on the relationship between the liberal arts and sciences and the fields within the Fine, Performing and Media Arts.

II. Culture, Values and Ethics
Students will become acquainted with the diversity of human behavior and the diversity of functions of social institutions. They will examine basic ethical questions that have confronted humankind as well as various approaches to these questions. They will develop textual literacies and awareness of literary issues by reading, analyzing and writing poetry, drama, fiction and non-fiction.

III. Historical Narratives and Civic Consciousness
Students will develop basic historical literacy concerning the historical periods they study, be exposed to research methodologies commonly employed by historians, and critically consider diverse sources and learn to use effective tools for arriving at conclusions and supporting various theses. Students will develop an appreciation for historiography and its profound effect on their ability to think critically about current events.

IV. The Physical and Material World
Students will understand and practice the scientific methods of questioning, analysis, testing and "proving." They will come to appreciate the cumulative nature of advances in scientific knowledge. They will develop computational literacy sufficient to function responsibly and effectively in society.