‘Peace Passport' Offers More Relevant Liberal Arts Education

How do you make a college education more relevant in today's world?

You can start by incorporating cross-cultural experiences into the curriculum. Also, require that rather than algebra, students take either statistics or calculus. And, they should pass an advanced writing competency course and a grammar test.

Those are among the features of Peace College's "Peace Passport" curriculum. The new liberal education program went into effect for first-year students who entered Peace in the fall of 2006. The program represents the college's revised curriculum of requirements students must complete in addition to their major courses.

"Peace women were already benefiting from a strong curriculum delivered by a talented faculty," said President Laura Bingham, "but this revamped liberal education curriculum more broadly educates students in the arts, humanities and sciences."

Implementation of the Peace Passport program followed a two-year review of the college's curriculum by the Peace faculty. The program is designed to engage students across the four years of their experiences at Peace, rather than limited to their first two years as is done at many colleges.

The initiatives are designed to accomplish three main goals: incorporate a cross-cultural component into the curriculum; add increased rigor; and, provide for increased flexibility in teaching and learning.

Among the program's components is greater use of team-taught paired and interdisciplinary courses in which broad topics are explored using the skills and knowledge of various disciplines. For example, a course on a subject such as motherhood would allow exploration of interweaved topics in business, biology, psychology and child development, among other fields.

"Students will be more engaged in world issues," said Scott McElreath, an assistant professor of philosophy who helped develop the new curriculum. "More students will see how to apply what they're learning in class to real-world problems."