Editing Core Curriculum (Columbia College) (section)

===Changes to the Core===
In the later half of the 20th century, many US universities moved towards a more elective system. Some historians see the change as a response to social activism—the civil rights, feminist, and various other social movements saw the Core Curriculum as an inflexible way to promote the canon of "dead white males" and as a failure to acknowledge the essential contributions of other global cultures. Others interpret it as a concession to increasing calls for earlier specialization to prepare students for post-graduate scientific and professional studies.<ref name=sage/>

The Extended Core was created in 1990 following a report from professor [[Wm. Theodore de Bary]] in which he urged the university to expand the Core to include topics in non-Western cultures, in line with its original mission to facilitate discussion in contemporary issues. It consisted of a requirement that students take two courses in non-Western cultures from a list drawn up by the Committee on the Core Curriculum, and was soon renamed to "Major Cultures".<ref name=":0" /> Following a 2007 hunger strike which called for increased funding ethnic studies, a reform of the Core, and revisions to the university's [[Manhattanville, Manhattan|Manhattanville]] expansion plan, Major Cultures was replaced in 2008 with the Global Core.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jones |first=Thai |date=2008-01-06 |title=Two, Three, Many Columbias |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/education/edlife/hunger.html |access-date=2022-08-19 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=September 3, 2008 |title=Core of the Matter: Updated Major Cultures fails to improve requirements |work=Columbia Daily Spectator |url=https://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs20080903-01.2.24&srpos=1&e=-------en-20--1-byDA-txt-txIN-%22global+core%22------ |access-date=August 20, 2022}}</ref> The oldest course in the Global Core is the "Colloquium on Major Texts", more commonly known as "Asian Humanities", a course on Asian classics which was established in 1947 by de Bary as "Oriental Humanities".<ref>{{Cite web |title='Oriental Humanities' |url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/oriental-humanities |access-date=2022-08-19 |website=college.columbia.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=de Bary |first=Wm. Theodore |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KI8Y5TOIN7sC |title=Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics |date=2011 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-15396-6 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|13}}

The most recent addition to the Core is "Frontiers of Science", which includes a set of analytical approaches that apply to all disciplines of science. "Frontiers of Science" is taught as four three-week units: two from the physical sciences and two from the life sciences.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Frontiers of Science receives highest student course evaluation score since its founding |url=https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2019/01/22/frontiers-of-science-receives-highest-student-course-evaluation-score-since-its-founding/|access-date=2021-09-05|website=Columbia Daily Spectator}}</ref>