Long known as Connecticut’s public liberal arts university, Eastern Connecticut State University’s trademark curriculum has a new face. Launching this fall 2024, the new Eastern Liberal Arts Core (ELAC) is a more streamlined program aimed at meeting the needs of today’s rapidly changing world.

“Thanks to the extraordinary work of our faculty and many others across the entire university, Eastern has reimagined its liberal arts core to emphasize the essential skills and habits of mind that will enable every graduate to thrive now and well into the future,” said President Karim Ismaili.

As always, the curriculum ensures a broad-based education by engaging students in disciplines outside of their major, but now it does so with crucial employability skills in mind. Beyond broadening horizons and being intellectually stimulating, each ELAC course is designed to foster one of five target learning outcomes — critical thinking, ethical reasoning, communication, creativity and quantitative literacy — skills highly sought after by employers.

“ELAC teaches students to approach life and work critically and thoughtfully,” said political science Professor Courtney Broscious, a member of the ELAC committee. “This creates innovative problem solvers who can face the challenges of a constantly evolving world.”

Each Eastern student regardless of their major completes ELAC before receiving their degree, constituting 40 of the 120 credits needed to graduate. Students customize their ELAC journeys with a selection of foundational (writing/math intensive), disciplinary and core (interdisciplinary seminar) courses. In addition, every course utilizes at least one of 11 high-impact learning practices, such as research, community-based learning, internships, capstone projects, team-based projects and more.

Starting their very first semester, students can choose from many intriguing ELAC core seminars, such as “Getting Started as an Entrepreneur,” “Political Disinformation and New Media,” “War and Society,” “Ethics of Biotechnology” and more.

“When considering the benefits of exposure to many disciplines, we recognized that an accumulation of knowledge is not enough,” said theatre Professor David Pellegrini, a member of the ELAC committee. “That’s why ELAC focuses more on what to do with that knowledge. Prioritizing the learning outcomes and meeting today’s students where they are, in essence, makes a liberal arts education more relevant, responsive and dynamic.”

For more information about ELAC, visit: https://www.easternct.edu/liberal-arts-core/index.html.