The arts should be included in the core curriculum because the need to make, experience, and comprehend art has been one of the essential defining human activities since the record of human history began. Few students, however, come to college equipped with an understanding of and an appreciation for art either as activity or as product. The core requirement, therefore, aims at enlarging students' systematic knowledge of the arts and at encouraging them to experience art as makers, performers, and audiences both within and outside the University.

One three-credit course in art, music, or theater should be required. Core courses in the arts should give students insight into both the discipline and craft by which artists achieve their characteristic effects and also the satisfactions inherent in the process of artistic creation. Courses in the arts ought to illustrate the role of art in the formation and expression of a culture and should encourage respect for the art of different cultures. Finally, these courses should incorporate a historical perspective, so that they reveal both the discontinuities of historical change in the art of particular periods as well as the deeper continuities in social and spiritual values embodied in the impulse to make art. Courses whose aim is the development of artistic skills are not included unless they also incorporate the elements noted above.