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Marquette Core Curriculum

Marquette Core Curriculum Overview

The Marquette Core Curriculum (MCC) is the center of every Marquette University undergraduate student's educational experience, providing a distinctive approach that is:

  1. Grounded in the Jesuit Tradition. The specific courses included in the Marquette Core Curriculum are shaped by the more than 400 year-old tradition of Jesuit education, which has always emphasized the disciplines students need not just to succeed in a career but also to thrive as a human being. From Foundations courses in Rhetoric, Philosophy and Theology to courses across the humanities, social sciences and natural science and math as well as courses exploring social systems and values, the MCC embodies the Jesuit commitment to a firmly grounded education that prepares its graduates to make a difference in the world.
  2. Oriented to Integration. Unlike a typical general education program, which might simply require a distribution of introductory classes from a variety of disciplines, the Marquette Core Curriculum extends across all four years of a student's undergraduate experience and invites connections between classes in the MCC and with classes in a student's major. With Discovery classes united by a common theme and a Culminating Experience course taken during junior or senior year, the MCC encourages students to view their studies as a unified whole that serves a larger purpose.
  3. Essential for Transformation. By using resources from the Jesuit tradition and highlighting the connections between courses, the Marquette Core Curriculum plays a pivotal role in the transformative education that makes Marquette distinctive. Specifically, the MCC provides the time and tools for students to evaluate not just what they want to do when they graduate but who they want to become.

Marquette Core Curriculum Learning Outcomes

The learning outcomes of the Core are rooted in Jesuit perspective and values, and focus on creating students who communicate responsibly and ethically, engage the world as moral actors and citizens with purpose, collaborate with diverse others using a broad disciplinary focus, and become leaders in discovery to solve global problems.

Responsible and Ethical Communicators

Marquette students will be able to responsibly and ethically use written, spoken and visual communication to express ideas, create meaning, build relationships, foster understanding and advocate for a better tomorrow.

Moral and Ethical Actors

Marquette students will be able to articulate appropriate professional and personal judgments that are rooted in an ethical and moral foundation and informed by Catholic, Jesuit thought. They will use these foundations to make decisions that promote stronger communities and a just society.

Citizens with Purpose

Marquette students will develop a sense of purpose professionally, personally and as global citizens who demonstrate critically reflective discernment processes that are rooted in their theological, intellectual and personal commitments.

Collaborators Promoting Equity and Justice Across Cultural Contexts

Marquette students will develop skills to understand how power, positionality and privilege shape their own lives and those of others, locally and globally. They will be able to describe how racism, colonialism, classism, sexism, other forms of prejudice and other oppressive forces have impacted and continue to impact the well-being of marginalized groups and to identify historical and structural barriers to equity and inclusiveness. They will also be able to recognize the innate human dignity shared across diverse groups and to apply skills learned in class to work within and across cultures to promote justice and equity.

Leaders in Discovery

Marquette students will advance understanding of the world by identifying significant questions and then searching for answers based on a systematic process of discovery that is rooted in intellectual inquiry and the Jesuit liberal arts tradition.

Global Problem Solvers

Marquette students will be well practiced in cooperative and cross-disciplinary problem-solving skills and they will be able to present innovative solutions that draw from theological, philosophical, qualitative and quantitative perspectives to address the increasingly blurred lines between local and global challenges.