Core Requirements of the School of Liberal Arts

Foreign Language Requirement

The Liberal Arts faculty believes that, in an era of globalization when people of all nations are increasingly mixing with and doing business with each other, students should try to achieve a real proficiency in a foreign language. As a step toward that goal, students in the Liberal Arts are therefore required to achieve proficiency in a foreign language, modern or ancient, by passing a course at Tulane at the 203 level or above.

If a student demonstrates proficiency at the 203 level upon arrival at Tulane with a score of 4 or 5 on an AP examination, with a score of 640 or above on an SAT II examination, or by passing a Tulane-administered examination, then the student must take one additional language course at Tulane because the faculty believes that all students should be exposed to language instruction at the college level. Students who test out of 203 may satisfy this requirement by taking a higher level course in the language that they have tested out of.

Writing Intensive Requirement

Writing is the most important skill that a student masters in a liberal arts education. In order to assure that all of its students have achieved a high level of writing proficiency by the time they graduate, the School of Liberal Arts requires them to take one approved writing-intensive course beyond the writing proficiency requirement of the general core. Students may satisfy this requirement by taking a course that is designated “writing-intensive” in the course schedule or, with the approval of the instructor and the Liberal Arts Curriculum Committee, by meeting the requirements of a writing-intensive course with one of their regular courses.

If a course is to satisfy the writing-intensive requirement, it must require

• at least 20 pages of writing in one or more papers,
• the rewriting of at least 10 pages in response to criticisms and comments by the instructor. The rewritten work may be one paper of 10 pages or more or two papers of 5 pages or more each.

Students are encouraged, but not required, to satisfy the writing-intensive requirement with a course in their major. Students may satisfy this requirement with a capstone course in the major, as long as the writing requirements of the course achieve the defined minimum for a writing-intensive course, or with a senior honors thesis.

Distribution Requirements

In order to achieve the minimal breadth which the faculty deems appropriate to a liberal arts education, all students in the School of Liberal Arts must take the following courses in addition to those required by the general core:

Humanities and Fine Arts: One additional course in either the Humanities or the Fine Arts, beyond the two required by the general core. Students must assure that at least one of the three courses they take to satisfy the general and school cores is a Humanities course and at least one is a Fine Arts course.

Social Sciences: One additional course in the Social Sciences, beyond the two required by the general core. Students must assure that the three courses they take to satisfy the general and school cores are in at least two different Social Science departments or programs.