Core Curriculum

North Star Statement

In keeping with our identity as a Sinsinawa-sponsored, Catholic, Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), the Dominican university Liberal Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum, along with a chosen major, provides students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to dismantle injustices that they may face and that harm others in the world around them. The core increases students’ capacity for personal growth, through building foundational skills that underpin a purposeful, economically secure, and fulfilling life. Further, the core helps students to create a more just and humane world by offering experiences in which they begin to understand and address the most complex problems in our local communities and shared world. 

An Overview:

The core curriculum plays a key role in an undergraduate education. In distinctive ways, the core curriculum helps students realize the principles outlined in the Vision for Undergraduate Education and achieve the undergraduate learning goals and outcomes listed above. The core curriculum consists of four parts: 

• Becoming Scholars: building knowledge and skills essential throughout the core and majors;
• Disciplinary Perspectives: exposing students to knowledge and modes of inquiry, including critical and creative thinking, in disciplinary domains
• Dominican Frameworks: developing the tools and abilities to participate in the creation of a more just and humane world; and
• ​Dominican CV: Career and Vocation: giving students the tools to succeed in the world of work and opportunities to think deeply about the meanings of the work they are called to do.

Total credit hour requirements: 37 - 42

BECOMING SCHOLARS (4 courses/14-15 credit hours)

Courses that help students to build knowledge and skills that are essential for their learning in the core and in their majors/minors. Students must take at least one course from each area: First-Year Seminar; Critical Reading, Writing, and Speaking; Quantitative Literacy; and Language other than English.

• First-Year Seminar (FYS)

The Examined Life First-Year Seminar: First-year seminars begin the process of examining one’s life and take as a focal point these fundamental questions:

• What is the self?
• Who am I? How did I become who I am? Who will I be in the world?
• What does it mean to live mindfully and reflectively? What helps and hinders that process?

All First-Year Seminars include a First-Year Experience component, which provides support for students as they transition to Dominican University.

• Critical Reading, Writing, and Speaking (CRWS)

An inquiry-based, themed course that helps students develop their interrelated skills of reading, writing, and speaking. The course is part of a writing through the curriculum program that incorporates various disciplinary concepts to promote skills in written and oral communication. Students must earn a C- or better in this course or an approved equivalent to complete the requirement. 

• Quantitative Literacy (QL)

The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) briefly defines literacy as “reasoning in context and making judgments based on real-world data and having real-world consequences.” The MAA has been working on defining and developing Quantitative Literacy Requirements since 1989 to try to improve the state of general mathematical knowledge, and they point to the importance of using quantitative literacy skills to solve real-world problems in daily life, educational experiences, careers, and civic engagement. 

The AAC&U similarly defines quantitative literacy (QL) as a “habit of mind,” competency, and comfort in working with numerical data. Individuals with strong QL skills possess the ability to reason and solve quantitative problems from a wide array of authentic contexts and everyday life situations. They understand and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative evidence and they can clearly communicate those arguments in a variety of formats (using words, tables, graphs, mathematical equations, etc., as appropriate).”

Students taking any course in Quantitative Literacy (QL) at Dominican must demonstrate quantitative literacy, which is further explained by effectively representing information in mathematical forms, drawing reasonable conclusions based on appropriate mathematical concepts and quantitative analysis of data, and using quantitative evidence in support of an argument.

Placement required.

• Language other than English (LOTE)  

Courses that meet the LOTE requirement focus on written and oral communication and intercultural competence. Students will advance their proficiency in a language by developing a range of skills, including listening, speaking, reading, and writing in the target/heritage language. Students will also gain knowledge of human cultures and experiences by learning language and culture in tandem. Cross-cultural awareness in these courses develops as students use the target language as a means to understand how to interact with people from other cultures and become global citizens.   

Placement required.

DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES (4 COURSES/12-14 hours)

Exposing students to knowledge and modes of inquiry, including critical and creative thinking, in disciplinary domains:

• Science Literacy (SL) (2 courses)

Courses in this category will focus on the terms, concepts, methodologies, and practices of inquiry while applying analytic reasoning to the investigation of the natural or social world. Students may meet the Science literacy requirement by taking two eligible courses in the natural sciences (including biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Geology, natural Science, neuroscience, Nutrition, and Physics.) and the social sciences (including Black World Studies, Communication Arts and Sciences, Criminology, Economics, Informatics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Study of Women and Gender).

• Humanities and Arts (HA) (2 courses)

​Courses in this category invite students to engage with ideas and artifacts of human experience. Studies in humanities and arts promote reflection, self-awareness, empathy, and critical and creative thinking. Humanities and arts courses provide knowledge of and insight into the human condition in its interactions with the world, and they help students understand their own identities as well as the experiences of others. Courses in this category are offered in the disciplines of Art, Communications Arts and Sciences, History, Literature, Music, Philosophy, and Theater. 

DOMINICAN FRAMEWORKS (2 courses/6 credit hours)

Courses that help students develop the tools and abilities to participate in the creation of a more just and humane world. 

• Social Justice and Sustainability (SJ) (1 course)

Courses in this category provide important context for the educational mission of pursuing truth, giving services, and creating a more just and humane world. These courses provide knowledge about and experience with natural and social realities that threaten the safety, stability, justice, peace, and well-being of the world but that can be changed and healed through human knowledge and action. Examples include racial and gender injustice, climate change, ecological destruction, and wealth inequality. Courses may emphasize social justice, environmental sustainability, or the complex interconnections between them. The particular focus may be local or global, but instructors are encouraged to make connections that help students grasp both immediate urgencies and broader explanatory contexts and develop the agency and power to engage in these efforts. 

Classes that meet this requirement will 1) identify causes, forms, and effects of exploitation, oppression, and injustice and their intersections in the U.S. or in a global context; 2) analyze the historical, social, and/or cultural contexts that give rise to the exploitation of groups of people and/or the natural world; and 3) evaluate past, current, and potential future efforts to promote agency, justice, equity, solidarity, and the interconnectedness of life. 

• Theology (TH) (1 course)

​​A course in theology aims to thoughtfully and critically engage students in the “big questions” of life; that is, questions that extend beyond professional concerns and delve into the nature, meaning, and value of existence. A course in theology asks students to become familiar with and critical of the methods and sources proper to theological and religious reflection. Students will be challenged to describe specific ways that religious traditions, especially Catholic Christianity, raise and attempt to answer questions of ultimate meaning and value. Students will engage with a variety of theological concepts, texts, and thinkers from a global and/or diverse array of cultural perspectives to articulate a theologically-informed position on key questions regarding the transcendent meaning and value of human existence and experience.

• Meaning, Value, and Truth (MV) (tagged requirement for 1 course)

All students are required to take a course tagged in Meaning, Value, and Truth (MVT). In these courses, they will gain an understanding of how essential questions concerning human meaning making, moral evaluation, and the discernment of truth have been addressed within different cultural traditions and historical periods and how they have been framed by different philosophical and theoretical positions. Classes with this tag explore core issues, philosophical theories, and debates that inform concepts of meaning, ethical responsibility, and truth, and challenge students to use a variety of philosophical and theoretical frameworks to more sensitively, justly, and humanely respond to ethical questions which arise at the personal, professional, and socio-political level. 

Classes that meet this requirement will: 1) articulate different philosophical theories from a variety of cultural perspectives, and 2) apply those theories to enduing questions of meaning, value, and truth. 

YOUR DOMINICAN CV (6 credit hours)

• Career and Vocation: CV 100: Launching Your Career

This course provides a structured opportunity for students to leverage their college experience as the first step in their professional development. Students connect, engage, and reflect on their goals and strengths, and strategically assess the many opportunities on campus, articulate their goals for why they are enrolled at Dominican, and connect college to post-graduation goals. This course offers a balanced approach to vocational exploration through reflection and action. The course culminates with an informational interview in which students interview a professional to explore an area of interest and practice networking. 

• Career and Vocation: CV 200: Leveraging Your Strengths

This course provides a structured opportunity for students to master Dominican’s S.T.A.R. approach to written and verbal professional communication, including interviewing, resume writing, and job search-related communications. They also improve their networking and relationship-building skills. Students will more deeply reflect on their Clifton Strengths as a continuation from FYS (First Year Seminar) or as an introduction for transfers while exploring their skills, values, and interests to help solidify potential careers and secure an internship. The course culminates with a mock interview event in which professionals interview students and students practice networking. Prerequisite(s): CV 100 Launching Your Career or CV 100 Waiver - Transfer Students only

• Career and Vocation: CV 300: Presenting Yourself Professionally

This course provides a structured opportunity for students to develop strong oral communication skills. Students strengthen these skills by mastering Aristotle’s three components of effective rhetorical speaking: ethos, logs, and pathos. As student sills increase, more advanced interviewing techniques are introduced while students continue to build self-awareness, career self-efficacy, and a deeper understanding of their own career and calling through reflection and networking activities. Along with multiple opportunities to receive feedback on their oral communication skills, students deliver a professional presentation for employer partners as part of their final project. Prerequisite(s): CV 200 Leveraging Your Strengths; junior level standing

• Career and Vocation: CV 400: Managing Your Career

This course provides a structured opportunity for students to take the final step in their college career-readiness path. Topics include negotiating job offers, understanding compensation and benefits, managing professional feedback, navigating long-term careers while being agile and thoughtful about career changes. Students are supported as they navigate their full-time job search, explore further post-secondary education plans, or prepare for full-time volunteer opportunities. Students develop a WixePortfolio to professionally present to employers and the DU community during an interactive Senior Showcase. Prerequisite(s): CV 300 Presenting Yourself Professionally; senior level standing

• Career Practicum: CP 355 (at least 2 credit hours)

A Career Practicum is a form of experiential learning that integrates knowledge and theory learned in the classroom with practical application and skills development in a professional workplace setting under the direct supervision by a professional with relevant education and/or expertise. The experience (an internship, clinical rotation, student teaching, or research internship) provides students with a robust opportunity to gain practical experience for future employment and/or graduate school application and helps them reflect on and fine-tune career path directions(s). During the Career Practicum, students execute career management skills learned through their Career and Vocation courses including building social capital through professional networking, gaining career self-efficacy and self-advocacy, and gaining access to unpublished career opportunities. The Career Practicum presents students with the opportunity to practice working in the careers they aspire to have upon graduation while receiving wraparound support from the Dominican community. The Career Practicum is a critical step in a student’s professional career, as this type of experiential learning has been known to increase a student’s likelihood of post-graduation success in securing a full-time position, graduate school enrollment, and/or full-time professional volunteer service. A Career Practicum provides students the opportunity to gain valuable applied experience, develop social capital, and explore professional career paths.

TAGGED REQUIREMENTS (no additional credit hours)

• Technological and Information Literacy (TI) (1 course)

Technology refers to the skills, methods and processes people use to achieve goals. For the purposes of the undergraduate Core Curriculum we define technological literacy as possessing and exercising the ability to use electronic (or digital) applications (programs) in order to communicate ideas effectively to others and to realize goals / desired outcomes. Technological literacy involves knowing how to do something such as construct a formula in a program like Excel but also knowing the reason for using the formula and the program in the first place. Further, information is knowledge that comes from observation, investigation, study and/or instruction. According to the Association of College and Research libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy, “information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning” (ACRL 2015:8). Information literacy requires, reflects, and promotes sills in research/creative inquiry and critical thinking.

• Advanced Critical Reading, Writing, and Speaking (ACRWS) (1 course)

A course tagged in Advanced CRWS builds on the skills a student developed in their first-year CRWS. These courses help students further develop the interrelated skills of reading, writing, and speaking. ACRWS courses are 200 or 300-level courses that may be taken in a student’s major or minor or in the core. Students must have at least 28 earned credit hours (sophomore status) to enroll in these courses. Finally, students must earn a C- or better to complete the requirement.

Illinois Articulation Initiative

Dominican University is committed to helping students transfer and will automatically place the student in the core curriculum that has the more direct path toward degree completion. Requests to change to a different core curriculum should be directed to the Office of Advising, advising@dom.edu (link sends e-mail), for audit and then processed by the Office of the Registrar.  Transfer students have the following options:

Completed IAI GECC 

Transfer students who enroll at Dominican with a completed IAI GECC Core Curriculum from a school that is a full participant in the Illinois Articulation Initiative (IAI) General Education Core Curriculum (GECC) will be waived from the Dominican core and will only have to complete the Dominican graduation requirements noted below.

• The Dominican graduation requirements include:
  • Social Justice and Sustainability requirement (may be satisfied by an equivalent course)
  • Theology area requirement - must complete at Dominican 
  • Career and Vocation 200, 300, and 400
  • Career Practicum 355

IAI 30+

Transfer students who enroll at Dominican with at least 30 transferable credit hours can complete the IAI GECC at Dominican using Dominican coursework in lieu of completing Dominican’s core requirements and will have to complete the Dominican graduation requirements noted below. 

• The Dominican graduation requirements include:
  • Social Justice and Sustainability requirement (may be satisfied by an equivalent course)
  • Theology area requirement - must complete at Dominican 
  • Career and Vocation 200, 300, and 400
  • Career Practicum 355

Fewer than 30 transferable credits

Transfer students who enroll at Dominican with fewer than 30 transferable credit hours completed will complete Dominican’s core requirements and graduation requirements using applicable transfer work and Dominican courses and forgo completing the GECC.

The following is the Dominican core and how GECC requirements may count towards meeting some of the requirements:  

IAI GECC courses that count as elective credits include:

• Composition II
• Speech Communication (may transfer as major credit, depending on transfer guide equivalencies)