The curriculum leaves space for this other type of learning through the level of the number of courses and the encouragement of the development of the whole person. When several years ago the University of Pennsylvania expanded its general college requirements from three areas to seven different sectors, it, like Duke, was attempting to adapt to changes both in the world at large and in the disciplines themselves, said Kent Peterman, director of academic affairs at the Penn College of Arts and Sciences. Instead of traditional labels such as humanities and natural and physical sciences, Penn students are now asked to take courses listed under sector titles such as Society, Formal Reasoning and Analysis, and the Living World. The seven sectors better reflect how departments operate now. Two changes in particular have prompted such a system.
Departments are more interdisciplinary, so knowledge crosses discipline boundaries much more today.
And department courses, Peterman said, are more likely to offer a wider range of knowledge. Psychology, for example, is represented in Living World, Science Studies, and two other sectors. Philosophy has a presence in a number of sectors. Likewise, Harvard has a complex set of general college requirements that present students with choices in areas such as Moral Reasoning, Social Analysis and Quantitative Reasoning. Other national trends are reflected in the Duke curriculum.