The VCU Core Education Program provides a compact between VCU and its students. The university pledges to provide opportunities for students to improve their oral and written communication competency, to develop their critical thinking abilities, to improve their ability to work collaboratively on projects, to attain information fluency, to achieve quantitative literacy and to understand ethical perspectives and civic responsibilities in the 21st century.

Along with an emphasis on student-centered learning, the primary goals of the Core Education Program are to:

Improve students’ levels of competencies in all skill areas.
Blend knowledge and skills from different disciplinary areas into one integrated experience.
Encourage and promote student engagement in present and future learning.

Mission of the Core: By providing shared learning experiences, the Core Education Program helps students develop competencies necessary for lifelong success.

The Core Education Program consists of 21 credit hours intended to be completed by the end of the sophomore year. Individual schools determine all other curricular requirements for their programs of study.

The Core Education Program includes three tiers.

Tier I

6 credit hours: UNIV 111 and 112 Focused Inquiry I and II: This two-semester sequence is required of all first-year students and provides the foundation of the Core Education Program. Students begin their Core shared experiences through the summer reading program with follow-through in the FI sequence as they engage in similar assignments and projects both in and out of class.

Tier II

As a complement to the first tier, Tier II courses reinforce the learning objectives introduced in the Focused Inquiry sequence. Courses in this tier are drawn from across the university and include:

3-4 credit hours – a quantitative literacy course from the following approved list:

MATH 131 Introduction to Contemporary Mathematics
MATH 141 Algebra with Applications
MATH 151 Precalculus Mathematics
MATH 200 Calculus with Analytic Geometry
MGMT 171 Mathematical Applications for Business
STAT 208 Statistical Thinking

3 credit hours – a research and academic writing course that emphasizes academic argument, information retrieval, analysis and documentation.

3 credit hours – a humanities/fine arts course from the following approved list:

ENGL 215 Readings in Literature
HIST 201 The Art of Historical Detection: ____
HUMS 250 Reading Film
MASC/INTL 151 Global Communications
PHIL 201 Critical Thinking About Moral Problems
PHIL 250 Thinking About Thinking
RELS 108 Human Spirituality
WRLD/INTL 203 Cultural Texts and Contexts: ____
WRLD 230 Introduction to World Cinema

3-4 credit hours – a social/behavioral sciences course from the following approved list:

ANTH/INTL 103 Cultural Anthropology
ECON 101/INTL 102 Introduction to Political Economy
HUMS 300 Great Questions of the Social Sciences
INTL 101 Human Societies and Globalization
POLI 103 U.S. Government
POLI/INTL 105 International Relations
PSYC 101 Introduction to Psychology
SOCY 101 General Sociology
WMNS 201 Introduction to Women’s Studies

3-4 credit hours – a natural/physical sciences course from the following approved list:

BIOL 101 Biological Concepts
BIOL/ENVS 103 Environmental Science
CHEM 110 Chemistry and Society
ENVS 201 Earth System Science
FRSC 202 Crime and Science
INSC 201 Energy!
PHYS 103 Elementary Astronomy

Tier III

The third tier culminates in a capstone experience integrating the Core Education Program with the student’s major. This requirement, as determined by the major, may be fulfilled through a service-learning project, a research project with a faculty member, a study-abroad program, a senior thesis paper, a practical internship or a major-specific capstone course. This requirement ties learned experience in the Core Education Program with a practical application in the major.