Queens College Announces New Curriculum

Intending to better prepare their students for the challenges of the 21st century, Queens College has announced the adoption of a new undergraduate curriculum that will replace its current requirements with new courses called, “Perspectives on the Liberal Arts and Sciences” (PLAS).
“The goal of a college education should be to prepare students for meaningful, productive lives,” says Queens College President James Muyskens. “At the end of their undergraduate careers, our students should have gone beyond simply acquiring knowledge and analytical and communication skills. They should be ready to take their place as global citizens. I believe this is absolutely vital and that our new core requirements will help accomplish the goal.”
The new curriculum will go into effect for freshmen in the fall of 2009. However, the first of the new courses being developed will be offered this fall as part of a pilot program and then evaluated as to whether educational goals are being met.
The new courses will offer a broader range of inter-related, cross-disciplinary courses that will sharpen students’ critical thinking and perspectives. It will also give them the tools to form connections between specialized study and general knowledge, to see the relationship between such seemingly disparate disciplines as biology and economics, and to understand the role they play in the larger context of the world.
These changes represent the efforts put forth by President Muyskens three years ago to review and update a curriculum that had not been revised in close to three decades. His objective was to ensure that the curriculum continued to be vital, relevant and responsive to the college’s mission and students’ needs.
Several colleges, including others in the City University of New York (CUNY), as well as private institutions such as Yale and Harvard, have recently adopted major changes in their core curricula.