Core Curricula in Higher Education is the first comprehensive reference guide to core curricula in American education. According to a significant number of recent and highly publicized reports, American higher education stands in urgent need of more rigorous and thorough course requirements. A number of institutions have excellent models from which other colleges and universities can learn, yet many of these models are not well-known. The proposed volume presents every core curriculum available from a four-year institution in the US, including syllabus and reading list as appropriate, along with a brief narrative about its academic effectiveness and cost-effectiveness.
Steven Cahn, former Provost of the CUNY Graduate Center, and Michael Poliakoff, Policy Director of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and former Academic Vice President of the University of Chicago, have co-edited the volume and each contributed an introductory essay on the potential benefits of an effective core curriculum.