Liberal Arts Undegrad at Ivies?

[tk21769]

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I’m not saying these aren’t really interesting numbers and great examples of outcomes to be proud of SJCs success, however, I don’t find that kind of evidence to be particularly compelling for a GB curriculum or even necessarily connected to GB. Why isn’t Columbia on some other playing field when it comes to Ph.D. production when they’re more selective and also follow the GB model? In this case I think we see correlation and not causation, and many factors which come with an environment that would accept or construct a GB curriculum (rather than the effectiveness of the method itself) being the causes.

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<p>ModestMelody, you are right, the most successful schools for Ph.D. production tend to be LACs. Only one national liberal arts university shows up on the top ten. That school is the University of Chicago, which is rather LAC-like, but which also has a strong Core curriculum and has been influenced by the GB model. At least one of the LACs, Reed, which also is not a “Great Books” school, nevertheless has strong distribution requirements and enforces heavy exposure to Great Books in its required 1-year “Humanities 110” course.</p>

<p>I think you probably are correct that it is not the GB or Core model per se but some other factors that tend to come along with the GB/Core package. By implication, if we could isolate these factors, we could optimize for them in schools that use another model such as the Open Curriculum. Conversely, if we could isolate the success factors that tend to go along with the OC model, we perhaps could optimize for those in other schools (assuming the factors and the models are not mutually incompatible).</p>