Central to undergraduate education at the University of Notre Dame is the core curriculum, a set of required courses intended to provide every undergraduate with a common foundation in learning. These requirements play a critical role in the University's goal to "offer an unsurpassed undergraduate education that nurtures the formation of mind, body, and spirit."
Because these requirements signify and determine the knowledge, skills, and dispositions every Notre Dame student should have upon graduation, the University undertakes a thorough review of its core curriculum every 10 years.
That current review process began in August 2014, when University President John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Provost Thomas G. Burish appointed a Decennial Core Curriculum Review Committee to review the current requirements and deliberate possible changes. The committee was co-chaired by John McGreevy, I.A. O'Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and Michael Hildreth, professor of physics; it also included 11 other faculty members from across the University.
It concluded in November 2016 with the approval of this final version of the committee's report. Learn more about the core curriculum review process here.
In January 2017, the Provost appointed a Core Curriculum Transition Committee, which will serve as a bridge to the permanent Core Curriculum Oversight Committee. The transition committee's work is set to conclude by September 1, 2017. Any final decisions regarding the recommendations made by the transition committee will be reviewed by the permanent oversight committee.
The goal is for the new core curriculum to be in place for the undergraduates entering Notre Dame in fall 2018.