Trinity College Arts & Sciences Curriculum

Arts & Sciences Curriculum

Students entering Duke follow the Arts & Sciences curriculum adopted in April 2024 and launched in Fall 2025.

“Today’s undergraduates live in a very different world than the students of the early 2000s,” said Gary G. Bennett, dean of Trinity College. “Amid global insecurities, climate change, increased polarization and technological advances that were barely imaginable 25 years ago, a world-class liberal arts education is more valuable than ever. But how we deliver on that promise should evolve over time.”

The information below applies to students entering in or after Fall 2025. If you are an undergraduate student who enrolled prior to Fall 2025, you can find more information about your curriculum here.

Shared Values for a Liberal Arts Curriculum

The Arts & Sciences curriculum defines the set of academic experiences that will be shared by its students. It should ensure that all students receive the core elements of a Duke liberal arts education, regardless of their background, academic path, or co-curricular activities. These elements include engagement with different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, active interaction with peers and faculty, and sustained study in at least one discipline.

Values for the Duke Student Experience

Connections

The curriculum supports our students as they build connections within Duke. Building connections – with other students, with faculty, and across ways of thinking and experiences – provides a firm foundation for our students’ pathways through Duke.

Curiosity

The curriculum encourages curiosity. Students develop a mindset that promotes openness to novel ideas, that values understanding even in the absence of instrumental outcomes, and that supports continued learning throughout the lifetime.

Humility

The curriculum encourages epistemic humility. Students recognize the limitations of their own knowledge, while also developing the skills necessary for engaging with others’ viewpoints in a constructive, respectful manner.

“Trinity College of Arts & Sciences is committed to providing an educational experience that supports each student’s intellectual and personal growth. With the adoption of this new curriculum, tomorrow’s undergraduates will continue to experience the world-class liberal arts education Trinity is known for as Duke University moves into its second century."
- Deborah Reisinger, Dean of Undergraduate Education for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

See full-sized graphic of the new curriculum.

Features of the New Curriculum

Trinity students must complete a first-year experience and a major as well as liberal arts, language and writing requirements. While the liberal arts curriculum offers a range of perspectives on the world and our construction of knowledge and meaning, the major invites students to apply those perspectives to pursue specialized knowledge and skills.

First-Year Experience

Trinity students must complete a first-year experience that includes a set of three interconnected courses that explore a topic from multiple perspectives.

This can be satisfied by participating in a Constellation or enrolling in the FOCUS program.

In Constellations, students take one course from their Constellation in the fall, one in the spring, and one integrated Writing 120 course assigned in either semester. Students also participate in at least one experiential activity in each of fall and spring semesters.
In FOCUS, students take two FOCUS courses in the fall plus one Writing 120 course in the spring. FOCUS also features weekly dinners and additional experiential activities in the fall semester.

Liberal Arts

Trinity students must complete two courses in each of six categories:

CE: Creating & Engaging with Art
HI: Humanistic Inquiry
IJ: Interpreting Institutions, Justice & Power
NW: Investigating the Natural World
QC: Quantitative & Computational Reasoning
SB: Social & Behavioral Analysis

Each course can carry up to two Liberal Arts codes from the list above; students can only receive one of these codes for each course they take. For up to two Century Courses, however, students can receive two codes (either two of the same code or two different codes) from the list of Liberal Arts distribution codes above. A Century Course is the answer to the following provocation: “If students could take a single course in your discipline during their time at Duke, this is the course your faculty would want them to take." Century Courses introduce students to the core questions and approaches that define the field and equip them with fundamental knowledge and methods central to the discipline.

Century Courses will be introduced in Fall 2026.

Languages + Writing

Trinity students must complete three writing courses, including first-year writing and at least one course after their first year.

Trinity students must complete three courses in a single language sequence, two courses at the 300-level or higher, or one course at the 300-level or higher and two courses in another sequence.

Majors

Every Trinity student must complete a major.

Students can complete up to a total of three academic plans, including majors, minors, and certificates. Students may complete 1 or 2 majors.

Arts & Sciences Curriculum

Values for the Duke Student Experience

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