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American Cultures |
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120 Wheeler Hall (510) 642-2264 |
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AMERICAN CULTURES REQUIREMENT
Students who entered Berkeley in fall 1991 or thereafter in lower division standing (as a freshman or sophomore with 0-55 transferable semester units) and ALL students who entered in fall 1993 or thereafter MUST satisfy the American cultures breadth requirement in order to graduate. You satisfy the requirement by passing, with a grade not lower than C- or P, an American cultures course. You may take an American cultures course any time during your undergraduate career at Berkeley, but we strongly urge you to meet the requirement this year. If you have questions about your responsibility to satisfy the American cultures breadth requirement, then please see your academic counselor. American Cultures Center Staff Victoria Robinson, Coordinator, victoriarobbi@berkeley.edu
About American Cultures Courses A Berkeley faculty committee determines which courses satisfy the requirement. Faculty members from many departments teach American cultures courses, but all courses have a common framework. The courses focus on themes or issues in United States history, society, or culture; address theoretical or analytical issues relevant to understanding race, culture, and ethnicity in American society; take substantial account of groups drawn from at least three of the following: African Americans, indigenous peoples of the United States, Asian Americans, Chicano/Latino Americans, and European Americans; and are integrative and comparative in that students study each group in the larger context of American society, history, or culture. These courses focus upon how the diversity of America's constituent cultural traditions have shaped and continue to shape American identity and experience. This is not an ethnic studies requirement, nor a Third World cultures requirement, nor an adjusted Western civilization requirement, nor a course on racism. It is a new approach that responds directly to the problem encountered in numerous disciplines of how better to present the diversity of American experience to the diversity of American students whom we now educate. Please note that American cultures courses may also meet other requirements, such as a college or school's breadth requirement or a department's major requirement. Refer to the online schedule of classes for a current list of classes offered. We urge you to enroll in one of the American cultures courses offered this semester. The lower division ones (numbers 1-99) are designed specifically for freshmen and sophomores. Most American cultures courses fill up quickly so enroll early. American cultures courses are among the most important components of Berkeley's efforts to teach a diverse undergraduate student body about the diversity of American society, history and culture. The academic senate committee on the American cultures breadth requirement has approved hundreds of courses--and another 79 at other colleges--ranging in size from seminars of 15 students to lecture classes of 750 students. Except for a handful of exceptions, these are new courses conceived and implemented since the faculty senate vote in 1989. Some lower division courses are introductions to or surveys of a particular discipline, and some meet departmental prerequisites for a major. Departments or programs that offer upper division American cultures courses have included nearly all of them in their programs for majors. All colleges at Berkeley allow American cultures courses to satisfy their humanities or social science breadth requirements. From fall 1991, when the American cultures requirement went into effect, through the 2004 spring term, over 110,000 students enrolled in 1230 American cultures courses. In 2003-2004, departments and programs offered 118 courses enrolling over 9,600 students. The campus administration is committed to helping academic units offer enough courses each year to allow 23,000 undergraduates to satisfy the American cultures breadth requirement for the baccalaureate degree. The American cultures program won the Berkeley campus 1996 competition for the Educational Initiatives Award. In recognition of the program's achievement, the University of California at Berkeley won a certificate of excellence in the 1994 Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Faculty Development to Enhance Undergraduate Teaching, a competition sponsored by TIAA-CREF. Also to acknowledge American cultures innovations, the American Association of University Administrators awarded the University of California at Berkeley the John L. Blackburn award and first place in the teaching and learning practices category in its 1993 competition for Exemplary Models of Administrative Leadership. |
