The Core 250 program will undergo changes within the next few years.
Professor of philosophy Forrest Baird presented the changes to the Associated Students of Whitworth College (ASWC) Wednesday.
Baird said the Core 250 team began discussing changes after junior Karla Rose sent a letter with recommendations.
A resolution and addendum passed by ASWC two weeks ago provided the push to bring changes to the 250 program to fruition, Baird said.
The changes to the program will come in waves.
Baird emphasized 250 will retain the European perspective, but will seek to incorporate other world perspectives. The main areas of the world the 250 program will examine are Asia, Africa and the Americas.
“We think [European culture] is the dominant culture," Baird said. "It is the one that has shaped. It’s not the only one. We want to get at the contributions of other cultures.”
Next fall, one lecture about how Europeans responded to encounters with the rest of the world will be added to 250.
By the following spring, 250 will look at different parts of the world and their intellectual history. The focus will remain on epistemology. Baird said because this is a big change only China will added.
The following year, people will sign up for one of the three areas of the world to go in depth to, which is similar to the current structure of Core 350.
The ASWC resolution demanded Core allow representatives from different cultures present lectures on that particular culture. Baird said this is demand will not be met.
"Our experience has been outside experts don’t fit into the flow of the class," Baird said.
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"The following year, people will sign up for one of the three areas of the world to go in depth to, which is similar to the current structure of Core 350."
Wow.
Because, you know, every class should strive to be more like Core 350.
Personally, Core 250 has been one of my favorite classes at Whitworth, and I'm sad to see the structure change this much. I think you can add thinkers from across the world and get a larger variety of perspectives, and still keep the course structure fundamentally unchanged. It sounds like this change is aimed toward seriously changing the nature of the course to make it more like Core 350... which would be a huge step backward.
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