There is considerable disagreement these days over what constitutes general education and who determines what the curriculum should be.  One point of view characterizes the core of general education as a body of content that provides students with a common, unifying body of knowledge that all educated Americans can build upon.  Another view sees the core as including a survey of culturally relevant current topics that provide students with an understanding of contemporary issues. Central to managing the tension between these positions is the question of who makes the decision about what constitutes the core and whether the two points of view can be accommodated in a single curriculum. In this episode I’ll look at this struggle and how forces both internal and external to higher education are dealing with the academics and politics of the situation.

EdUp Insights with Bill Pepicello is part of the EdUp Experience Podcast network.