The Integrative Core Curriculum was first established in 2013 to give Ithaca College students a shared academic experience. Rather than just requiring a list of liberal arts courses, the ICC is designed around a set of shared goals along a flexible pathway that begins with the Ithaca Seminar and concludes with your ICC Capstone.
After gathering input from students, faculty, and staff, as well as outside experts, the ICC Program Review recommended changes to the program to maximize that flexibility while staying true to those shared goals. A task force was formed to turn those recommendations into clear proposals that were voted on by the faculty in 2021. For students entering in Fall 2022, there will some key changes to the ICC:
- Students will no longer be limited to a single Theme when choosing Perspectives courses.
- Departments and degree programs may opt to align their major with one of the four Perspectives, so that students will fulfill that Perspective as part of their program.
- The eportfolio will be eliminated as a graduation requirement.
That’s all well and good, you say, but what about those of us currently completing our IC degrees? The good news for you is that we have already begun easing ICC requirements in anticipation of these changes! Specifically:
- You need only complete two (2) sections of the eportfolio in Taskstream: the CLA and the Capstone. (If you entered before Fall 2019, you’ll still see the other areas in the DRF, but just ignore them and focus on the CLA and Capstone.)
- It’s easier than ever to request a waiver to allow a course outside your Theme to count for a Perspective! Just complete the brief form in IC Workflow titled ICC Exceptions. You can request this before you take the class (to get preapproval) or after (if you misread Homerconnect when you registered).
- You can also use that form if a course you’ve taken has subsequently been given an ICC designation. Select “retroactive designation” and upload the syllabus from when you took the course. If the course is sufficiently similar to the more recent ICC version, we can submit a Course Waiver Substitution to allow it to count.