CAS will use the university Catamount Core Curriculum designations for distributions beginning in Fall 2023. The criteria below are what we have used to determine distributions and the Non-European Cultures designation in the past.
The Committee voted in April 2011 to approve the following guidelines for courses fulfilling CAS distribution requirements (Fine Arts, Foreign Language, Humanities, Literature, Mathematics, Natural Science, Social Science).
A list of courses that currently fulfill distribution requirements is available in the UVM catalog. If the course you are proposing is not covered by the existing system, please include a statement in the “Academic Merit” box in CourseLeaf that indicates which distribution designation you are seeking. HCOL faculty should indicate the distribution designation sought on their syllabus, which will automatically be forwarded to the CAS Curriculum Committee.
Faculty seeking CAS distribution designations should make sure that their course proposals clearly reflect engagement with the questions listed here. That might be done on a syllabus constructed and/or annotated for a faculty audience or as a “companion document” in CourseLeaf.
For interdisciplinary courses, the committee has agreed that at least 50 percent of the course content must meet these guidelines for a specific requirement in order to be considered as a course fulfilling a specific distribution requirement. (The sections on Arts & Sciences Interdisciplinary, crosslisted, and see also courses may be useful in the preparation of interdisciplinary course proposals.)
FINE ARTS
By “Fine Arts,” we mean disciplines that seek to understand and explore the visual and performing arts as means of expression. A course fulfills the Fine Arts requirement if it meets the following criteria:
- Does this course address (through discussion and practice) formal elements and principles specific to the discipline?
- Does this course implement models of critical analysis relevant to the discipline?
- Does this course address historical models and/or contemporary practice specific to the discipline?
- Does this course promote artistic expression through study of history, theory, studio production, or performance?
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
The Curriculum Committee does not currently have articulated guidelines for this category. Any questions should be referred initially to Abby McGowan.
HUMANITIES
The Humanities typically involve the study of human thought and culture, including individual expressions and the subjectivities that underlie them. The central disciplines of the Humanities are: history of the arts*, classics, history, philosophy, political thought and theory, and religion. Foreign language and literature are also generally considered Humanities, but these courses are used to satisfy separate distribution requirements. Because human thought and culture are so diverse and dependent upon contextual factors, and because the Humanities focus on contingent and specific phenomena, much critical attention is paid to questions of theory and methodology. Courses in the Humanities promote the ability to read, interpret, and evaluate primary documents and/or materials using the methodology of the discipline.
*History of the arts courses that satisfy Fine Arts guidelines can count for either Humanities or Fine Arts.
LITERATURE
A course that studies the literature of any culture in any language shall fulfill the Literature requirement if it meets all of the following criteria:
- At least 50 percent of the course readings consists of literary texts (e.g., novels, poetry, drama, memoirs, graphic novels) and/or readings in literary theory.
- The course has as a primary purpose understanding and appreciation of this literary content.
- The course employs techniques of literary analysis to achieve this understanding and appreciation.
MATHEMATICS
The Curriculum Committee guidelines for this category are still a work in progress. The core idea, though, is that the course should have mathematical and/or formal, symbolic reasoning as its object, rather than merely as a mechanism for the study of another subject. A course that meets the CAS mathematics requirement should meet the university’s Quantitative Reasoning (QR) requirement, but the CAS mathematics requirement is narrower than QR, so not all QR courses will meet the CAS mathematics requirement. Any questions should be referred initially to Abby McGowan.
NATURAL SCIENCE
A course that fulfills the CAS distribution requirement in Natural Sciences must be consistent with the scientific method and must share the characteristics that all courses in a Natural Science discipline have in common.
Within the framework of the discipline,
- How does this course promote observation of Nature as a way of knowing? To what extent are complex systems analyzed by isolating and studying their components under controlled conditions?
- To what extent does this course emphasize the process of generating working hypotheses based on quantifiable observations? To what extent does this course present the evolution of hypotheses into theories and/or models that account for classes of natural phenomena?
- To what extent does this course illustrate the use of appropriate theories and models to predict the evolution of natural systems over time?
SOCIAL SCIENCE
A course that fulfills the CAS distribution in Social Sciences must be consistent with the scientific method and must share the characteristics that all courses in a Social Science discipline have in common:
- How does this course promote observation of human social phenomena as a way of knowing? To what extent are social systems analyzed by studying either their components or their entirety?
- To what extent does this course emphasize the process of generating working hypotheses based on quantitative and/or qualitative observations? To what extent does this course present the evolution of hypotheses into theories and/or models that account for classes of social phenomena?
- To what extent does this course illustrate the use of appropriate theories and models to predict or explain change in social systems over time?
NON-EUROPEAN CULTURES
At least 50 percent of the course content must deal with non-European cultures; historically, we have counted Latin America as “non-European.”
Please note that CAS NEC courses also meet the university D2 requirement. However, all university D2 courses do not meet the CAS NEC requirement.