The Core Curriculum was originally developed as the main curriculum used by Columbia College of Columbia University in 1919. Created in the wake of World War I, it became the framework for many similar educational models throughout the United States, and has played an influential role in the incorporation of the concept of Western civilization into the American college curriculum. Today, customized versions of the Core Curriculum are also completed by students in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of General Studies, the other two undergraduate colleges of Columbia University.
Later in its history, especially in the 1990s, it became a heavily contested form of learning, seen by some as an appropriate foundation of a liberal arts education, and by others as a tool of promoting a Eurocentric or Anglocentric society by solely focusing on the works of "dead white men". Largely driven by student protests, the Core in recent decades has been revised to add focus on non-Western cultures, as well as postcolonial works to the literature and philosophy sequences. The most recent major addition to the Core was made in the 2000s with the addition of "Frontiers of Science", a scientific literacy course, to the curriculum.
History
Early curricula
Early instruction at Columbia College, from its founding in 1754 as King's College, almost entirely revolved around the study of the classics, and entering students were expected to already be fluent in Ancient Greek and Latin. Through most of the 19th century, all students were prescribed a single course of studies, save for a period of time beginning in 1830, when the college introduced the "Literary and Scientific course" in addition to the standard curriculum, which was dubbed the "Full course". The former was open to the public with no expectations of attendance, and was discontinued in 1843. In the "Full course", as set out in the 1843 revision of the college's statutes, in addition to four years of the classics and German, freshmen were to study algebra, geometry, and English grammar and composition; sophomores, trigonometry and solid geometry, levelling, navigation, chemistry, physics, and rhetoric; juniors, "practical astronomy", chemistry, geology, the "principles of taste and criticism", logic, and English and modern European literature; seniors, differential and integral calculus, mechanics, philosophy and religion, and English composition. The adoption of mandatory German was made that year, following a $20,000 bequest from Frederick Gebhard which established the university's German department, though it was soon made optional in 1847.
By the late-19th century, many American universities, including Harvard, had seen a trend towards more elective programs. President Frederick A. P. Barnard was an early supporter of this movement—in 1872, Yale President Noah Porter criticized him as one of "the educational reformers who should know better" for his advocacy in favor of elective curricula and his support for Charles William Eliot of Harvard. During his tenure he managed to establish a system wherein roughly half of a student's courses would be electives, and the other half required by the faculty, though his stance would lose ground at the college over the following decades. However, this began to change starting in the 1880 with the introduction of the modern language requirement; Columbia dropped Ancient Greek as an entrance examination requirement in 1897, and Latin in 1916. This gradual thaw, along with university's move to Morningside Heights just prior to World War I, set the stage for a major change in curricular focus in the early 20th century.
"Contemporary Civilization"
In 1917, the United States Army commissioned the university to create a "war issues" course in order to educate the Student Army Training Corps, and to explain the causes of WWI and the reasons for US involvement in the conflict. Following the war, in 1919, this course was transformed into "Contemporary Civilization," the oldest course of the Core Curriculum, which faculty presented as a "peace issues" course intended to confront the realities of the post-war era. Writing about "Contemporary Civilization", Dean Herbert Hawkes stated that "its significance rested on the fundamental principle that in the long run man's accomplishment can rise no higher than his ideals, and that an understanding of the worth of the cause for which one is fighting is a powerful weapon in the hands of an intelligent man."