Table of Contents - Hartwick College

• SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. The future will be shaped even
more than the present by science and by the application of
scientific knowledge to life-that is, technology.
• CRITICAL THINKING AND COMMUNICATIONS. The future
will require better thinking. There will be vast amounts of
information available, and sifting and analyzing that data,
thinking about it deeply and critically and then expressing our
ideas effectively will become more and more important.
• CHOICES. The future will present us with difficult choices to be
made. Many of the old enduring dilemmas will still be with us, of
course, such as the meaning of personal freedom, but we also will
be faced with a wide range of new choices raised by new
technological capacities and a shrinking world.
This set of five themes is the framework around which the curriculum is
built. For each, we have developed a set of requirements to prepare
students for the future. The many choices available within each category
provide ways to personalize how students meet the requirements.
The Major
Another central element of the curriculum is the major. The liberally
educated person needs to know what it is like to follow some discipline or
pursue some area of learning deeply. This means going well beyond the
superficial level and to experience the joys and frustrations of facing
profound issues and the great unanswered questions in your field of
interest.
A student who wants to design a major program that is very much his or
her own might find our Individual Student Program option an especially
interesting challenge. It is a way for a student, working with a team of
faculty members, to put together a specialization within the context of a
liberal education in a unique, “hand-crafted” way.
Electives
Elective courses complete the academic program. A lot of creativity may
be exercised in this part of the curriculum. Many students use some of
these courses to complete a minor-perhaps in a field related to their
major, perhaps in an interdisciplinary program that cuts across many
fields, such as environmental science and policy. The range of possibilities
is enormous. Some electives may be useful in broadening career
opportunities, for example, management or computer science courses for
the art major hoping to work in gallery administration, or courses in a
foreign language for the management major interested in international
business. Other electives contribute to a student's ongoing personal and
intellectual development.
Writing
The College has directly addressed writing as an essential skill for future
success, requiring all students to demonstrate college-level writing
competence. Each student is tested and placed on entering the College
and must progress through a series of “levels” until this requirement is
21