First-year students who arrived on campus this fall are embarking on an educational journey that will be grounded by a new general education curriculum designed to help them make and share connections. The new Connected Learning (CL) curriculum, developed over the past four years by Bridgewater College faculty, is intended to give students the knowledge and skills to be successful in any post-college venture.
According to Dr. Christine Carrillo, Professor of Music and one of the authors of the CL curriculum, institutions need to revisit their core curriculum every decade or so as the needs of students and prospective employers change.
“We reviewed what we were doing well and researched what other liberal arts colleges are doing with their general education curriculum,” Carrillo said. “All that information guided our redesign process and led us to build a new curriculum that we believe is well-suited for our students.”
Some of the former core curriculum—the Foundation in Liberal Arts (FILA)—remains in place. Students will still be required to take classes in mathematics, oral communication, research writing and world languages. They will also take a first-year seminar to introduce them to the academic community and a senior capstone that will have them create a resume, portfolio or other document showing what they’ve learned at BC. Under the new curriculum, they will have the option to take that capstone class in their major department.
“One of our goals for the students is for them to learn to take what they’ve learned in– and outside of class and put it together to market themselves for a job,” Carrillo said.
New with the CL curriculum is a category of courses that introduce students to the varied ways of learning across disciplines. Rather than requiring that students take classes in specific academic areas, the courses will instead focus on teaching students the skills of particular disciplines. Students will still take courses in history, English, science, etc., but those classes will include an explicit focus on the skills of that discipline (historiography, the scientific method, critical analysis, etc.). In addition, a broader range of classes will be available for students.
“The research we’ve done shows that employers want to hire people with particular skills that enable them to take what they learned in their major and in other areas and use that knowledge in varied job settings,” Carrillo said.
The new CL “ways of learning” include such categories as Creative and Artistic Practices, which include a selection of art, music and theater classes; Study of Human Narratives, which includes classes ranging from English to philosophy; Scientific Study of Nature, which encompasses several introductory science classes; and Engaging in U.S. Diversity, which includes a range of courses from the English, history and political science, world languages and sociology departments. Students will be required to take a class in each of these categories, as well as a few others.
“We want to help students understand that there are different ways of thinking and learning,” explained Dr. Betsy Hayes, Dean of the Rhodes School of Arts and Humanities. “If students can learn to be flexible thinkers, then they will be well-prepared for problem solving in their jobs and in their lives.”
– Heather Cole
12/1/25
