So How's That Open Curriculum going

Corbett
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:47:34 +0000

Corbett should sample a bit more broadly before generating a set of hypotheses

Perhaps you missed it, as this is a rather long thread, but I explicitly acknowledged Grinnell as an open-curriculum school with a lot of science/math majors back in Post #41 above. I also acknowledged that some distribution-requirement schools (like Middlebury) don’t have a lot of science/math majors either.

One obvious difference between Grinnell and Amherst (and this was also discussed above) is that Grinnell doesn’t have the same kind of competition. Realistically, if you want to attend a top LAC in the Midwestern US, then you are going to apply to Grinnell – regardless of whether or not you value the open curriculum. In the Northeastern US, the situation is different: there are a lot of options, and so people who particularly value the open curriculum can zero in on those schools (like Amherst) that offer it. The open curriculum is a defining characteristic of Amherst to a greater extent than it is at Grinnell.



The open curriculum works for everyone.

I’m absolutely sure there are people who like the open curriculum because they can blow off English or foreign languages or whatever. And if all subjects were equally disliked, then an open curriculum wouldn’t make any net difference to overall departmental enrollments.

But if certain subjects are disliked more than others, then it could.