Reception to mark Core Curriculum anniversary

Administrators, faculty and graduate students involved with SIUC's Core Curriculum will celebrate the program's 10th anniversary at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, in the Student Center video lounge on the fourth floor. A public reception will follow at 3 p.m. in the Student Center's Old Main Lounge.

The program's first director, Ann-Janine "A.J." Morey, will talk about the program's unique features. Morey, who oversaw the transition from "General Education" to "Core Curriculum" in 1996, left SIUC in 1999 for James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., where she serves as associate dean of liberal arts.

The Core Curriculum consists of a set of broadly based foundation courses that impart skills and knowledge all students need to become educated citizens in a global society.

"The significance of this program is obvious to the approximately 13,500 students who take one or more core courses every semester -- that's 60 percent of all undergraduates at SIUC," said James S. Allen, the program's current director.

"More than 800 faculty and graduate teaching assistants deliver the core to fulfill the University's missions to provide 'a cosmopolitan and general education context which expands students' horizons and leads to superior undergraduate education.'"