Faculty Resources

All students entering in Fall 2025 or later will take the College Core. All students who entered prior to Fall 2025 are taking AXLE.

Read the details about the Core: how it works, the components, and the courses.

Capacities are the fundamental competencies that students gain from a given course. Capacity tags are assigned depending on which Capacities that course meets. Read a detailed description of the five Capacities.

We encourage faculty of all ranks across the college to teach in the Core. By teaching in the Core, you have the unique opportunity to:

• Broaden your faculty network with colleagues from across the college in an interdisciplinary intellectual community.
• Engage in multiple faculty development opportunities including workshops on pedagogy and formative peer-review of teaching.
• Receive support for teaching throughout the semester in weekly pod meetings and curricular discussions.
• Spend less time than usual on class preparation via a shared syllabus, completed Brightspace, and fully developed course materials.
• Help first-year students transition to Vanderbilt and become part of their own interdisciplinary intellectual community.
• Repeat First-Year Core teaching over multiple years to reserve even more time for tenure, promotion, or renewal.
• Faculty teaching in the First-Year Core and participating in faculty development workshops will receive a stipend of $2,500 per year for two years.

Contact Liz Catania with any questions.

Faculty have several options for teaching in the Core:

• First-Year Core seminars. CORE 1010: Being Human (offered in the Fall) and CORE 1020: Science, Technology, and Values (offered in the Spring).
• Exploratory Core electives. These courses tackle big questions and complex problems. You can either propose a new course or have one of your existing courses count as an Exploratory Core elective. See instructions on how to offer an Exploratory Core course.
• Capacity Courses. Many existing courses address one (or two) of the five Capacities that students need to fulfill. Add the relevant Capacity tags to your courses to have them qualify (see below for instructions).
• Inquiry Labs. These courses can be offered in any unit across the college, not just the natural sciences. See instructions on how to offer an Inquiry Lab.

Contact Liz Catania with any questions.

A: Exploratory Core courses are interdisciplinary classes that focus on building two Core Capacities and expose students to pressing public problems and broad intellectual questions. Here’s what that means for you:

1. Two Core Capacities: Exploratory Core classes must meaningfully incorporate and assess a majority of learning outcomes within each of two capacities (A, B, C, D, E). Read more about the Capacities and their associated learning objectives.
2. Pressing problems and complex questions: Exploratory Core classes probe multi-faceted questions and problems that have important implications for our society. Courses are organized around multidisciplinary problems, topics, or inquiries, not merely sub-disciplinary fields. They are designed to help students discover paths to new interests, hone interdisciplinary abilities, and develop more specialized study. Course titles can be pitched as a big topic or question, such as: “AI & Society,” “Gene Editing & Ethics,” “Reproductive Justice in History and Media,” “Technology & Economic Growth,” “What Are the Causes of Inequality?,” and “What Can We Do about Climate Change?”
3. Interdisciplinary: Exploratory Core classes are meant to show students how multiple disciplines tackle the big questions and problems facing our society. Instructors should draw attention to disciplinary boundaries—their contributions and limitations—with the goal of encouraging purposeful problem solving, the flexible application of fields, multidisciplinary perspectives, integration and synthesis, critical thinking, creativity, and/or teamwork.
4. Engaging and empowering assessment: Exploratory Core courses should include a holistic strategy for assessing student learning that involves varied and scaffolded assignments that engage students in their own intellectual growth. Of course, these assignments should afford students opportunities to achieve the learning outcomes associated with the two Core Capacities you choose. In addition, they should seek to empower students’ development of information literacies, critical thinking, problem solving, interdisciplinary synthesis, creativity, and personal efficacy. Often, multi-part or applied projects help achieve these aims, but instructors should develop assessments that meet the goals of their course.
5. Flexible in size: Exploratory Core courses are meant to enroll a standard 30-50 students. However, faculty can provide justification in their applications for either larger or smaller courses. If you teach a course with over 30 students in it, there is teaching assistant funding available from the A&S Dean’s Office. Learn more.
6. CORE 2500 + section #: The Registrar will list all Exploratory Core courses as Core 2500 and assign a unique section number. However, Core 2500 classes can also count towards specific disciplines and majors, which will be noted alongside the course description in YES.

If you are interested in teaching an Exploratory Core course, contact Joe Bandy or Dana Nelson.

1. Determine eligibility. Before you can add Capacity tags to your course, you should work with your department chair, program director, and/or DUS to determine the eligibility of your course for general education. In line with best thinking in general education curriculum design, only some A&S courses will be tagged with Core Capacities. Generally speaking, courses that will qualify for tagging:

• Are designed for non-specialists and are welcoming to non-majors
• Are taught at the 1000- or 2000-level
• Have no or few prerequisites
• Contribute primarily to general education

2. Identify Capacity tags. If you, your department chair, program director, and/or DUS believe your course fits the bill for general education, you then need to decide which Capacity tag(s) it fulfills. A course can receive up to two Capacity tags. To earn an appropriate tag, the course must meet a majority of the learning objectives associated with the tag (either 2 of 3, or 3 of 4).

Read a detailed description of the Core Capacities and their associated learning objectives.

3. Prepare rationale. Once you determine the appropriate tag(s) for your course, send the following information to your department chair, program director, or DUS:

• The most up-to-date version of the course syllabus
• An indication of which tag(s) the course should receive
• An indication of which specific learning objectives associated with the tag(s) the course fulfills
• A written rationale of how the course fulfills the relevant learning objectives. This step is crucial for the committee reviewing the submission. Please take the time to explain exactly how the course meets the learning objectives.

4. Submit materials. Once your department chair, program director, and/or DUS receives this information, they will submit it to the College Core Office. All submissions MUST come from a department chair, program director, or DUS to ensure consistency across a unit’s general education offerings.

Any department or program (not just those in the natural sciences) can offer an Inquiry Lab, so long as the course meets all of the primary and secondary learning outcomes listed below:

1. Understand and Apply Research Methods:
   • Understand and implement the key components of research methods for investigating the world, including observation, hypothesis formulation, experimental design, data collection, analysis, and drawing conclusions.
   • Design and execute studies to systematically investigate research questions.
   • Develop an appreciation for the iterative nature of research inquiry and the importance of continuous improvement.
2. Develop Data Analysis Skills:
   • Develop proficiency in analyzing quantitative or qualitative data using appropriate methods and interpreting the results in the context of the research question.
   • Identify and troubleshoot data collection and analysis issues, proposing solutions when necessary.
3. Visualize and Present Data:
   • Present and interpret results visually, using charts, graphs, photos, or other visualization tools.
   • Communicate research findings effectively through written reports or oral presentations.
4. Demonstrate Ethical Conduct and Collaboration:
   • Demonstrate ethical behavior in research, such as data integrity, research subject/participant protections, and respect for the work of others.
   • Work effectively with others, sharing responsibilities and contributing to group objectives.

Contact Liz Catania to learn more.

Please contact curriculum_as@vanderbilt.edu or anyone in the Core Office:

Leadership

Paul Stob
Director, Core Office
Director, Culture, Advocacy, and Leadership
Professor of Communication Studies
paul.stob@vanderbilt.edu

Elizabeth Catania
Associate Director, Core Office
Associate Professor of the Practice of Neuroscience
elizabeth.catania@vanderbilt.edu

Dana Nelson
Core Coordinator
Nancy Perot Chair of English
dana.d.nelson@vanderbilt.edu

Joe Bandy
Core Coordinator
Associate Professor of the Practice of Sociology
joe.bandy@vanderbilt.edu

Elizabeth Covington
Writing Coordinator
Principal Senior Lecturer in English
elizabeth.covington@Vanderbilt.Edu

Staff

Daniel Coradazzi
Program and Projects Manager
daniel.w.coradazzi@vanderbilt.edu

Postdoctoral Fellow:
Jo Adams, josephine.adams@vanderbilt.edu