Word: coreness
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...Trapped between Core Courses that too often skirt rigorous mathematics and intimidating departmental courses, students in non-quantitative disciplines are largely ill-equipped to work with numbers...
...sciences and humanities can, and too often do, spend their four years fleeing natural logs and derivatives. What distinguishes this problem from the converse—of math and science concentrators in humanities and social science classes—is not only the poor content of Quantitative Reasoning (QR) Core courses, but also the extent to which mathematical knowledge relies largely upon the ability to execute certain basic numerical techniques...
...Students unfamiliar with literary theory can still engage with texts written in a language they understand, but those rusty on their calculus are perplexed by basic notation like delta, theta, and epsilon. As a result, many literature and history Core courses are deemed substantive enough to qualify for departmental credit. But no QR Core makes the cut for the math or statistics departments...
...other hand, are heavy on calculus, usually so much so that students who don’t have an intense interest don’t bother to take the class. These two poles leave students lacking a middle ground between the courses aimed at concentrators and fluffier Core classes that do little to prepare students for subsequent coursework...
...Until the Faculty really adopts such an initiative, however, our optimism must be tempered. The reported inertia and apathy in new course development may yet condemn students to recast versions of the hollow Cores. As of yet, no new courses have been created under this Gen Ed category. Of existing courses approved to count for credit, only one, Mathematics 154: Probability Theory (which even Gen Ed Committee chair Jay R. Harris admits most students are never going to take), is not a hold-over from the Core...