It's not often I get to use pilates terminology on this blog. But there it is. Always a pleasure to advocate core strength (major for reducing back pain). And always a pleasure also to advocate for strong core curricula.

The occasion is Brown University's decision to devote quite a bit of effort to creating a meaningful structure and system of guidance for its famous no-requirements curriculum. At Brown, you do have to complete a major and demonstrate writing competence--but you are free of all those pesky distribution requirements that plague students at most colleges and universities. The resulting academic slackness--and the abdication of responsibility vis a vis helping students make wise and balanced educational choices--are now matters of concern at Brown. And it's about time.

Brown is not creating new requirements for students--perhaps wisely anticipating that this would induce a counterproductive resistance. But it is creating requirements for faculty--they must articulate the meaning and purpose of liberal education, and distribute the results to students; departments must produce written rationales for their majors and programs and must also explain how the courses of study they offer contribute to a broad liberal education; new advising mechanisms will be created to ensure that students get the guidance they need; and, in the name of transparency and accountability, e-portfolios of student work will allow Brown to track the progress of individual students over time as well as to get a better sense of what a Brown education means for students in the aggregate.

All good. And interesting to see a university that has for decades been at the extreme end of the "hollow core" syndrome affecting our higher ed system voluntarily setting a standard that could benefit many other schools. Here's how Inside Higher Ed puts it:

... some experts on the curriculum say that Brown's recent history with giving students freedom is simply a more explicit version of what plenty of colleges do -- but has forced the university to be more thoughtful about how to encourage the most educationally sound choices by students.

"The fact of the matter is that even at institutions that require students to complete general education, almost every college and university offers enormous freedom and very few have required sequences," said Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. "The curriculum really means a menu and the operative principle is a maximum degree of choice for students."

In this sense, Brown is more open about embracing student choice than are most colleges, but not as unusual as commonly believed in the extent of freedom given to students. Where Schneider said Brown is "providing exciting leadership," and going beyond many colleges that have many more apparent requirements on their books, is in "moving to provide an explicit statement and in plain English of what liberal education can be for their students."

When she meets with academic leaders considering their colleges' curricular plans, Schneider said, she frequently asks if they have ever written them down in a way that could be communicated to students--and is stunned by how rarely this happens. While not all students will pay attention, colleges can't expect students to embrace a curricular vision that has never been articulated.

Schneider also said Brown was potentially playing a key role in the way it is calling on every department to consider its general education role and not just its role in training majors. There has been a false dichotomy in too many discussions of curricular reform, Schneider said, between changes in major requirements and changes in general education requirements. Even at institutions with more requirements than Brown has, she said, the major needs to be considered as part of the general education goals, not separate from it.

Schools billing themselves as providers of liberal education really ought to be laying out what that means and making sure that students know how to make choices that are consonant with that meaning. So simple, so uncontroversial, so necessary, so overdue. Good for Brown.