Wheaton College has finalized its new general education program, Christ at the Core (CATC), which will be activated for the upcoming fall 2016 semester. Upcoming freshmen will study under this new program, while current students will study under the Legacy program with the option of incorporating certain CATC courses to fulfill gen ed requirements.
Christ at the Core allows for “incredible choice and flexibility,” according to Sarah Miglio, director of core curriculum at Wheaton. The change from the distribution model to a thematic core will cause certain courses, such as math and philosophy, to be excluded from the shared courses — those that all students take. The thematic model aims to achieve a common outcome in learning while offering numerous ways of fulfilling the requirement.
A unique component of the CATC curriculum is the Enduring Questions seminar required for all freshman starting next fall. This course will replace BITH 111 and will be linked to another required course called Advanced Integrative Seminar.
This 300 level course will require students to reflect on the time since their freshman course and examine how the questions they asked in that course had been answered through the Wheaton experience. The course will not be related to the student’s major and will be co-taught by professors from different disciplines in order to offer an interdisciplinary perspective.
A new online program, Degree Works, is also up and running as an informational and organizational aid for students seeking to fulfill gen ed requirements. Degree Works is an online tool that allows students to track academic progress towards graduation and major requirements, and has replaced the prior CAPP program.
“It’s been a long time coming for us,” said associate registrar and transfer analyst Jan Miller. According to Miller, the Registrar’s office began training one year ago and trained advisers throughout the fall semester. Instructional videos are now available online for students as of this past week.
Several students have reported difficulty logging on to the Degree Works program, but Miller assures that many of these cases are likely due to user error. Degree Works requires a specific link and is “not linked to my.wheaton” but is on the home intranet page. Students should access the program via the link provided in last Friday’s email.