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Integrated Learning-Living Communities

CORE Fall 2018

By Marissa McCray, Core and Humanities Visibility Coordinator

The Core Integrated Studies Program welcomed 115 new students in fall 2018.  Now well into the first semester, coursework is in full swing and students recently completed the legendary, first Core exam—a major milestone for most students and faculty alike.

In spring 2018, UD graduate Olivia Thomakos (’18) won a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) scholarship.  Thomakos, an English and Adolescent to Young Adult Education major, was a Core and Honors Program student. She is the fourth Core student in two years to win the prestigious Fulbright award.  Thomakos ventures to Malaysia to teach English in a secondary school.

The inaugural Core study abroad program:  “Core in Florence,” was an enormous success in summer 2018. The program was led by the faculty team of Drs. Roger Crum, Department of Art and Design, Elizabeth Mackay, Department of English, and Anthony Smith, Department of Religious Studies.  Fourteen Core students representing all three years in the program attended the summer abroad program.  Plans are underway now for a second study abroad program to take place in Spain, summer 2019.  Three integrated course offerings will provide an intensive and expansive learning experience in the best interdisciplinary tradition of Core.  Applications are open for all Core students until February 1, 2019.

On October 25, first-year Core students will attend the 2018 First-Year Arts Immersion, Dracula: Bloodlines, a Dayton Ballet performance at the Victoria Theatre.  The theme of power and vulnerability is interwoven into the immersion experience and all humanities commons courses this term.  Dayton Ballet Artistic Director and Dracula Choreographer, Karen Russo Burke, and Dracula Composer, Austin Jaquith, will give a lecture about the ballet in Core’s ASI 110 class on October 23.  The immersion event exemplifies Core’s curricular and co-curricular integration of the arts and culture. 

Returning this academic year is Core’s presence in the student neighborhood.  Core has double visibility this year with two Special Interest Houses, a women’s house at 216 College Park, and a men’s house at 54 Chambers.  Students in both Core Houses have plans for community engagement and are an extension of the vast peer support network available to Core students in all stages of the program.  

Core continues to utilize its social media channel to profile students and publicize program news and events.  Stay up to date and join the social conversation by “liking” the University of Dayton Core Program on Facebook.

As the oldest learning-living community on campus—the Core Program is now in its 33rd year.  Core continues its longevity as a challenging, 2 ½ year, innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum.  Students take carefully coordinated courses in the humanities, arts, and social sciences that center around the common theme:  “Human Values in a Pluralistic Culture,” that fulfill many Common Academic Program (CAP) requirements. 

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