For the first time in approximately twenty years, Covenant College’s core curriculum is being overhauled.
A few core texts for Intercultural Requirements, Doctrine I & II, and CHOW.
Small changes have been implemented—for instance, a few years ago a gym requirement was lifted—but this review, facilitated by a team of faculty and staff, will reexamine the entirety of the core curriculum. The goal is not only to shorten it but to make sure it speaks to the needs and experiences of the current generation of students.
“If it's the thing that everybody does, it is the thing that really shapes the hearts of our students,” said Dr. Colin Messer, vice president of academic affairs. “So I think it's worth revisiting with some regularity. It's been a good while since the core here has been heavily revised.”
All 58 hours of the program are under scrutiny. The project was made possible this year by an anonymous donation by a faculty member, underwriting the core review, according to Messer.
The review is still in the midst of its first steps, and the final form of the new program is still beyond prediction. The committee was initiated by Messer and chaired by Dr. Carole Yue of the psychology department. It was something Dr. J. Derek Halvorson, the recently departed college president, wanted to accomplish, according to Messer.
Current Covenant students will most likely not see the results of this new core curriculum themselves. If all moves quickly, the incoming freshman class in fall of 2025 might be the first to experience the new program.
Current students are invited to participate in the process. “We’re open to feedback,” Yue said. She encourages students to reach out to members of the review team with their own experiences with the core curriculum.
In April, the team met to read over the college’s philosophy of education. They also spent time reading works on general education, including the first chapter of “The Marketplace of Ideas” by Louis Menand and institutional research by other colleges.
The committee met at the end of July to discuss their goals and, since then, have been collecting data. They are talking with four groups of people: students, alumni, faculty and professional staff of the college. Trends are starting to emerge. For instance, the biblical studies program probably will not be changing.
“One thing that’s been overwhelmingly consistent from alumni and current students, particularly the more advanced students who have taken more of the core … is the value of the biblical literacy and doctrine sequence,” Yue said.
Messer affirmed that data reveals interest in a shorter core curriculum. He wants the finished curriculum to allow students to divide their credits into thirds. One-third would be core credits, one-third major specific, and a third left for electives.
After a meeting in October to build a framework for discussion, the committee plans to draft curriculum proposals in the spring. The new core curriculum will go to the Core Oversight Committee, which is currently in charge of core-related decisions for approval. All the members of the Oversight Committee are members of the Core Review Team.
Finally, Messer hopes the committee will be able to bring their proposal to the faculty in the fall of 2024. The entire faculty will vote on the new curriculum. Messer says he feels that their work will have failed if it does not receive a strong positive consensus from the faculty, who will ultimately teach the curriculum.
“We’re going to keep people apprised of where we’re going,” Messer said. He says that Yue has done an excellent job of keeping the rest of the faculty informed of the committee's current progress.
Yue seemed more cautious about the potential length of the project. “I think usually these things take a couple years,” she says, “because you have to plan it, and then the academic timeline can be slow in terms of changing things or developing courses … so in terms of implementation, we’re probably still a couple years, but hopefully not too long.”