ACU’s Core Curriculum: Rationale and aims

As a Catholic university, ACU has a distinctive intellectual inheritance that guides our mission and animates our curriculum.

As outlined in ACU’s Vision 2033 Strategic Plan, the provision of a “holistic education” for our students is one of the key planks of our mission, in which “the growth of the whole person” is prioritised. We look to “foster a sense of global responsibility” (1.4), and “promote the importance of ethical practice in all aspects of life and work” (5.3), paying close and critical attention to “the effects of global progress and change on individuals, communities and environments” (5.4).

While all ACU courses draw on aspects of the Catholic intellectual tradition in different ways, Core Curriculum units give an especially active and explicit expression to this inheritance, opening students to key aspects of this tradition of thought and practice in its intellectual depth and breadth, engaging students on important contemporary issues, and seeking to inspire practical social engagement in their communities.

Core Curriculum units aim to complement and enrich vocational studies and career formation. Students are challenged to broaden and deepen their thinking by investigating fields beyond the explicit focus of their chosen professional or vocational coursework programs, while also enabling them to gain valuable personal and professional development – including thinking and communication skills – that are so relevant to their future careers.

Through its coursework and community engagement units, Core Curriculum studies have various dimensions: intellectual, spiritual and experiential. Across these dimensions, the dialogue between understanding and impact is central.

The Core Curriculum coursework units are animated by a theological and philosophical core, but also find expression in broader humanities studies, dealing with matters such as ethics, social justice, aesthetics, meaning, and the history of ideas.

Meanwhile, the community engaged learning unit enables students to participate in collaborative and reciprocal partnership in a co-designed project, leading to critical reflection and transformative learning.

ACU’s Core Curriculum seeks to provide a key point of difference, rooted in our Catholic heritage, that adds value to our world class vocational study programs. In this way, it makes a unique contribution to ACU’s mission to “prepare students for the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow”.

Explore ACU’s Core Curriculum units