Course of Study - Kenyon College

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The Academic Program at Kenyon

No college can provide a liberal education ready made. A liberal education is achieved only in a lifetime of endeavor and reflection; the liberal-arts college serves to launch and orient that continuing pursuit.

We at Kenyon seek through liberal education to enhance our understanding of art, humanity, nature, and society. We expect to develop our awareness of our private capacities and creative talents, even as we seek to improve our ability to formulate our ideas rigorously and communicate them effectively to others. And, while we strive to further our intellectual independence so as to be free of dogmatic thinking, we seek to find a basis for moral judgments in a thorough understanding of both our environment and our cultural heritage.

At the heart of an undergraduate program of liberal education is the student's major academic study. This study demands a significant concentration of energies in a comprehensive and disciplined investigation, challenging the student's capacities in a way that limited acquaintance with a broad array of topics cannot do. To claim command over one's thoughts or to presume soundness of judgment, it is essential to understand one field thoroughly. Indeed, without a mastery of one subject the student may not be able to recognize the structural integrity of other disciplines. The coherence of undergaduate study, then, depends upon the focus and organization provided by the major.

Complementary to the values achieved through concentration is the richness that comes from significant encounters with a variety of disciplines. Both early and late in undergraduate years, students must feel obliged to diversify a course of study. At the outset they will find opportunity for new enthusiasms and challenges. Later on they will find that their powers of synthesis and discrimination are best cultivated by contrasting and integrating the various disciplines. Finally, the sense of academic and social community that has been the College's strength and pride depends in large measure on our willingness to be responsibly engaged with one another's studies.

The requirements for Kenyon's bachelor of arts degree specify what we believe to be essential to every student's pursuit of liberal education. While these requirements provide great freedom for every student to design a course of study suiting his or her interests and aspirations, they provide at the same time a common structure to promote the balance and coherence necessary to truly liberal study. Thus, every student is called upon to organize courses in such a way that the study of one subject illuminates and is illuminated by work in another. Every student is drawn to consider seriously the special contribution of the work in each of the four academic divisions in the College. Students may thus come to know how the image of humanity proposed by the sciences, say, differs from that celebrated by the humanities; they may come to see that the vision of the social scientist adds important dimension to the world revealed by the artist. In fulfilling these requirements, every student will find a road to the freedom enjoyed by the liberally educated: freedom from the tyrannies of narrow specialization and of superficial generalization.

Guide to the Kenyon Curriculum

The table on the next page has been compiled to aid in explaining key academic terms and definitions and to show how they relate to the curriculum.

Terms and Definitions at Kenyon College

The curriculum is organized within four traditional academic divisions and a fifth interdisciplinary division.	Fine Arts Humanities Natural Sciences Social Sciences Other (Interdisciplinary)
A discipline is a traditional area of academic study. Parentheses show that some related disciplines are grouped together into departments for administrative purposes. This book is organized alphabetically by department.	Fine Arts: (Art History and Studio Art); (Dance and Drama); Music Humanities: (Classics, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Sanskrit); English; (Modern Languages and Literatures, including Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish); Philosophy; Religious Studies Natural Sciences: Biology; Chemistry; Mathematics; Physics; Psychology Social Sciences: Anthropology; Economics; History; Political Science; Sociology
Interdisciplinary programs are those that draw from two or more of the traditional disciplines. For example, Asian Studies draws from the faculties of Anthropology, History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, and Religious Studies.	African and African-American Studies American Studies Asian Studies Biochemistry Environmental Studies Integrated Program in Humane Studies International Studies Law and Society Molecular Biology Neuroscience Public Policy Scientific Computing Women's and Gender Studies
Major: All students must complete a minimum of one major course of study in either a traditional discipline or in an interdisciplinary program.	All departments offer one or more major courses of study. There are currently five interdisciplinary majors: American Studies, Biochemistry, International Studies, Molecular Biology, Neuroscience.
A Synoptic Major is a course of study devised by an individual student in consultation with faculty advisors.	Synoptic majors are typically interdisciplinary in nature. Some recent examples are Behavioral Physics; Cultural Ecology; American Diplomacy; Cross-Cultural Women's Studies; and Art, Gender, and Society in Japan.
Students may elect to undertake a Minor course of study if they choose.	Minor courses of study are offered by the departments of Anthropology, Art, Biology, Classics, Dance and Drama, Mathematics, Modern Languages and Literatures, Music, Philosophy, Physics, Religious Studies, and Sociology.
A Concentration is very similar to a minor, except that it is interdisciplinary in nature.	Most interdisciplinary programs offer a concentration, while a few offer a major only.

Requirements for the Degree

While faculty members and administrators stand ready to counsel students about degree requirements, the final responsibility for meeting the requirements rests with each student.

Members of the Class of 2004 and Earlier

Students in the classes of 2004, 2003, and 2002, and in earlier classes, must fulfill the following requirements in order to earn a bachelor of arts degree at Kenyon:

1. Major: The student must successfully complete a major course of study, including the Senior Exercise.

2. Credits: Sixteen (16) Kenyon units (128 semester-hours or 192 quarter-hours) are required. Of these, a minimum of 8 units must be earned at Kenyon on a letter-grade basis. Above this minimum, the student may include a maximum of 2 Kenyon units earned at summer school, a maximum of 1/2 unit of physical-education credit, and a maximum of 2 units earned on a student-chosen Pass/Fail basis.

3. Residency: Eight semesters of full-time undergraduate enrollment are required. A minimum of four of these semesters, including the senior year, must be completed at Kenyon College, on the Gambier campus.

4. Grade-point average: In order to graduate, the student must earn a minimum grade-point average, at Kenyon College, of 2.00 (“C”). Like most other colleges and universities, Kenyon is concerned only with the grade average earned in residence, not with the average earned elsewhere.

5. Credits outside the major: The student must earn 9 or more units outside the major department; or, if there is more than one discipline in the department, the student must earn 7 or more units outside the major department.

To state this requirement another way: Those who complete their studies with the minimum of 16 units may not count more than 7 units in their major department (or 9 units, if the major is in a department including more than one discipline.)

6. Distribution: The student must earn 1 Kenyon unit in at least five departments that together cover all four academic divisions of the College. Thus, by the time he or she graduates, the student will have completed at least 1 unit, within at least one department, in each of the four divisions.

In fulfilling this requirement, students should pay careful attention to the relationships among disciplines, departments, and divisions. For example, 1/2 unit in MUSC (music) and 1/2 unit in ARTS (studio art) will not together satisfy a distribution requirement, because these two disciplines, though in the same division, are in separate departments. The charts on pages 6, 12, and 13 summarize the distinctions among disciplines, departments, and divisions.

One of the units for this requirement may (but need not) be completed in an interdisciplinary program. In addition, students may earn 1 unit in a division by combining a course from an interdisciplinary program with an appropriate departmental course—but only if the interdisciplinary course is “cross listed” in a department in the Course of Study. For example, ENVS 112, Introduction to Environmental Studies, is listed not only in the Environmental Studies section of the Course of Study but also in the Biology section; thus, ENVS 112 may be paired with any biology course to satisfy the natural-science requirement. Note: Two such courses may be paired only if the interdisciplinary course is cross-listed in the Course of Study during the year it was undertaken. Thus, following the same example, if for some reason ENVS 112 is not cross-listed in Biology during the year a student takes it, then that student may not combine it with a biology course to meet the requirement.

Members of the Class of 2005 and Later

Students in the Class of 2005, and in all subsequent classes, must fulfill the following requirements in order to earn a bachelor of arts degree at Kenyon:

1. Major: Requirements are the same as for members of earlier classes (see above).

2. Credits: Requirements are the same as for members of earlier classes (see above).

3. Residency: Requirements are the same as for members of earlier classes (see above).

4. Grade-point average: Requirements are the same as for members of earlier classes (see above).

5. Credits outside the major: Requirements are the same as for members of earlier classes (see above).

6. Distribution: The student must earn 1 Kenyon unit in at least four departments that together cover all four academic divisions of the College. Thus, by the time he or she graduates, the student will have completed at least 1 unit, within at least one department, in each of the four divisions.

Students may earn 1 unit in a division by combining a course from an interdisciplinary program with an appropriate departmental course—but only if the interdisciplinary course is “cross listed” in a department in the Course of Study. For example, ENVS 112, Introduction to Environmental Studies, is listed not only in the Environmental Studies section of the Course of Study but also in the Biology section; thus, ENVS 112 may be paired with any biology course to satisfy the natural-science requirement. Note: Two such courses may be paired only if the interdisciplinary course is cross-listed in the Course of Study during the year it was undertaken. Thus, following the same example, if for some reason ENVS 112 is not cross-listed in Biology during the year a student takes it, then that student may not combine it with a biology course to meet the requirement.

7. Second language: Students must demonstrate a level of proficiency in a second language equivalent to one full year of college study. Most students will meet this requirement by achieving a satisfactory score on a placement exam administered during Orientation. Others will satisfy the requirement by completing an introductory-level modern or classical language course at Kenyon or the equivalent elsewhere. If the language of choice is one not offered at Kenyon, however, the student is responsible for providing documentation that is satisfactory to the registrar or to the chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

8. Quantitative reasoning: The student must earn a minimum of 1/2 Kenyon unit of credit in a course, or courses, designated as meeting the quantitative-reasoning requirement. These courses are marked “QR” in the Course of Study. Note: A course will satisfy the quantitative-reasoning requirement only if it is designated a “QR” course for the semester in which it has been taken. Students should be aware that a particular course may change in character from one year to the next, so that it may count as a “QR” course during one semester but not during another.

Quantitative-reasoning courses may focus on the organization, analysis, and implementation of numerical and graphical data; or they may involve learning mathematical ideas, understanding their application to the world, and employing them to solve problems. In QR courses, students will learn some or all of the following:

To use statistical methods to analyze and interpret data.
To make inferences and decisions based on quantitative data—for example, by developing and testing hypotheses.
To critically assess quantitative information—for example, by reading and critiquing journal articles with quantitative information and analysis.
To design experiments, and learn and apply data-collection methods—for example, by developing data in laboratory exercises.
To use mathematical reasoning and the axiomatic method—for example, by using systems of symbolic logic.
To develop and use mathematical models—for example, to predict the behavior of physical, economic, or biological systems.
To learn and apply the basic ideas of probability, chance, and uncertainty.
To understand and apply concepts in algorithms and computer programming.
To communicate quantitative information and mathematical ideas—for example, by constructing and interpreting graphical displays.

A given QR course probably will not include all of these abilities, but every QR course will engage students in some of them. In courses identified with the QR tag, the use of quantitative reasoning is a major and continuing theme. Although the subject matter of QR courses will vary by department and discipline, the quantitative knowledge and skills developed will be applicable in a wide variety of settings.