Preface: Curriculum Revision and the Foundations of American Higher Education
David Quigley xi
PART I: INNOVATION AND THE LIBERAL ARTS CORE 1
Choreographing the Conversation: How Designers Helped Clear an Academic Logjam
William Bole 3
What Do We Know? Or, The Perils of Expertise
Toby Bottorf 13
Innovation
Andy Boynton 21
Ambitious Plans Meet Reality: How We Made the Renewed Core Work
Mary Thomas Crane 31
Slowing Down and Opening Up: Preparing Faculty to Co-design a General Education Course
Stacy Grooters 41
Core Renewal as Creative Fidelity
Gregory Kalscheur, S.J. 50
Reflection and Core Renewal
Jack Butler, S.J. 62
Surprised by Conversation: A Reflection on Core Renewal at Boston College
Brian D. Robinette 69
PART II: TEACHING THE RENEWED CORE 73
Complex Problem Courses 75
Teaching about a Planet in Peril
Prasannan Parthasarathi and Juliet B. Schor 77
Experimenting with Science and Technology in American Society
Jenna Tonn 82
Global Implications of Climate Change: Importance of Mentorship in a Core Education
Tara Pisani Gareau and Brian J. Gareau 104
Enduring Question Courses: Bringing Together Divergent Disciplines 115
How to Live in the Material World: Two Perspectives
Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace and Dunwei Wang 117
Aesthetic and Spiritual Exercises, in and beyond the Classroom
Daniel Callahan and Brian D. Robinette 123
Enduring Question Courses: Differentiating Similar Disciplines 133
Death in Ancient Greece and Modern Russia: Reflecting on Our Reflection Sessions
Hanne Eisenfeld and Thomas Epstein 135
Spending a Semester with "A Possession for All Time": Justice and War in Thucydides
Robert C. Bartlett 144
Inquiring about Humans and Nature: Creativity, Planning, and Serendipity
Holly VandeWall and Min Hyoung Song 150
The Liberal Arts Core: Engaging with Current Events, 2016–2020 157
Crossings: Teaching "Roots and Routes: Reading/Writing Identity, Migration, and Culture"
Lynne Anderson and Elizabeth Graver 159
The Architecture of a Black Feminist Classroom: Pedagogical Praxis
in "Where #BlackLivesMatter Meets #MeToo"
Régine Michelle Jean-Charles 167
Truth-Telling in History and Literature: Constructive Uncertainty
Allison Adair and Sylvia Sellers-García 178
Covid Core Lessons
Elizabeth H. Shlala 190
Acknowledgments 199
Appendix A: The Vision Animating the Boston College Core Curriculum 203
Appendix B: Boston College Core Curriculum Required Courses 209
Appendix C: Complex Problem and Enduring Question Courses, 2015–2021 211
List of Contributors 235
Index 243
