College

arts, independent, Catholic women’s college
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The book introduces Tusculum College to
readers as “a small liberal arts college in
Tennessee” that emerged from a institutionthreatening
crisis after “its president and
faculty decided (in 1989) to create an
educational model that is centrally concerned
with building better citizens.”
Among the distinctives of that educational
model were a “competency” program that
required students to demonstrate mastery of
nine competencies, including Self-
Knowledge, The Examined Life, Civility, and
Ethics of Social Responsibility.
Additionally, the Tusculum model also
included a Commons Curriculum that
included a strong emphasis on civic life and
responsibility, plus a service-learning element
woven into the academic fabric of the college.
With some refinements, the distinctives of
that educational approach remain in place at
Colby and her fellow authors
argue that there are 'some
values that are essential to
academic life and American
democracy, such as intellectual
integrity and concern for truth,
open-mindedness and
impartiality, mutual respect
and tolerance for others,
recognition that each
individual is part of the large
social fabric, and respect for
civil liberties and other key
elements of our democracy.'
the Tusculum College of today.
“An unusual feature of Tusculum’s
curriculum is its exclusive focus on one course
at a time,” the book states. “Each course in
this focused calendar meets every day for
three and a half weeks. Each academic year
contains eight of these blocks.”
The book goes on to describe how Tusculum
College implements its competency program,
finding many similarities and a few “subtle
differences” between the Tusculum and
Alverno approaches.
Later in the same lengthy chapter, the book
recounts the history of former President Dr.
Robert Knott’s “side porch conversations” —
weekly meetings between Dr. Knott and the
Tusculum faculty on the side porch of the
president’s house in the early 1990s. During
those meetings, readings from Plato, Cicero,
Aristotle and others were discussed and the
challenge issued to apply their classic
principles to a new undergraduate education
model aimed at “building better citizens.”
Those early efforts led to a “Civic Arts
Revolution” at the college and the distinctive
Tusculum educational model described in the
book.
“In the fall of 1991,” the book states,
“Tusculum College was reborn, having at least
the initial phases of all these innovations in
place.”
Tusculum’s commons curriculum receives
further attention in the chapter “Moral and
Civic Learning in the Curriculum.”
Tusculum’s commons curriculum is described
as “unusual in that it is a comprehensive core
curriculum composed of particular required
courses. Students are not offered multiple
alternatives because the Commons
Curriculum is intended to provide intellectual
common ground and create a community by
involving all students and most of the faculty
in a shared experience.”
Details of the program and its emphasis on
reflection, deliberation, and ethical decision
6