The Core Curriculum

The Cabrini University Core Curriculum is designed to help students develop the qualities of the liberally educated person. While the qualities emphasize desirable abilities and skills of Cabrini graduates, the general education requirements emphasize the curriculum content areas through which the faculty strives to help students develop these qualities.

While each student develops in-depth knowledge within a major, each liberally educated student also should share a common core of knowledge. In the 2022-2023 academic year, Cabrini University instituted new general education requirements for all students entering the University. These requirements, known as the “core curriculum” were designed to bring Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini’s Education of the Heart to a 21st-century undergraduate student body.

The commitment to providing all students a liberal education, combined with the University’s commitment to preserve its Catholic identity, shapes the entire Cabrini University core curriculum. All students complete a Cabrinian Religious Literacy course in their first year that introduces them to the Catholic faith, life, and legacy of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini. In their first year, all students will also take their Engagements with the Common Good 100 (ECG 100) course that challenges them to build upon what they learned in their Cabrinian Religious Literacy course while developing their own disposition toward promoting a common good.

The Common Good refers to the longstanding educational tradition at the University of building student knowledge, habits, values, and skills that can be used to benefit others—not in order to forsake the self but in order to create the conditions in which all people can find fulfillment.

All students will take three ECG courses—ECG 100, ECG 200, and ECG 300, as part of their core curriculum requirements. The outcome of the three Engagements with the Common Good is that students will be civically engaged: working for peace and justice and against poverty and oppression and increasingly growing in their compassionate concern and ability to advocate for all human beings.

In addition, the general education program has a unique responsibility to provide foundational knowledge, skills, and experiences which prepare students for and move students toward deeper, broader, and more integrated explorations of knowledge, values, and behaviors related to the Common Good and the Qualities of the Liberally Educated Person.

Frst-Year Curriculum

One Credit Standalone Courses

Cabrini Success Seminar

• This seminar is designed to guide first-year students in the transition to their Cabrini experience, and all full-time first-year students are required to take this seminar in their first semester at Cabrini University. 

History of Racism and Anti-Racism

• In the spring semester of their first year at Cabrini University, all students will complete their History of Racism and Anti-Racism core requirement. This course is designed to help students understand the multi-faceted nature of the Cabrinian mission and how it relates to the history of both racism as well as anti-racism in the United States.

Engagements with the Common Good (ECGs)

Three or Four Credit Standalone Courses

• All students will take three ECG courses—ECG 100, ECG 200, and ECG 300, as part of their core curriculum requirements. The outcome of the three Engagements with the Common Good is that students will be civically engaged: working for peace and justice and against poverty and oppression and increasingly growing in their compassionate concern and ability to advocate for all human beings.

Literacies

• Students learn foundational skills in writing, science, religion, culture, DEI, ethics, and technology.

Students should consult the Undergraduate Catalog for the year they matriculated at Cabrini for core curriculum and major requirements.