Distribution Codes for Arts & Sciences Curriculum (2025)
The following codes apply to students who have enrolled in Fall 2025 or later under the current Arts & Sciences Curriculum.
Trinity students must complete two courses in each of six distribution categories for a total of 12 required courses.
| Code | Description |
|---|---|
| CE: Creating and Engaging with Art | Courses in this area involve the production, performance and/or experience of artistic creativity. Students develop cognitive, affective and corporeal capacities through the process and production of knowledge via the creative arts; explore through practice the aesthetic forms that arise across cultures and communities and formulate insights about human creativity by making art and reflecting on how values and meanings are expressed through arts practice. |
| HI: Humanistic Inquiry | Courses in this area interpret literary and aesthetic expressions that span geographical locations, historical periods and cultures. Students analyze works and practices; engage with philosophies, religions and intellectual traditions; investigate communication practices and media; and gain skills in research methods associated with humanistic inquiry. |
| IJ: Interpreting Institutions, Justice and Power | Courses in this area investigate the events, ideas and practices that shape human societies. Students examine institutions, ethical and cultural traditions, religious systems, and the historical and current events that shape these large-scale features of societies; examine the structures that underlie inequality, power and societal change; and apply a diverse set of qualitative and quantitative scholarly practices. |
| NW: Investigating the Natural World | Courses in this area investigate and develop models for physical and biological processes. Students develop foundational knowledge about the causes of natural phenomena; explore the structure and temporal evolution of physical and biological systems; apply experimental, analytical and computational methods; and learn the power and limits of scientific explanations. |
| QC: Quantitative and Computational Reasoning | Courses in this area involve mathematical reasoning, statistical analysis and computational methods. Students engage in formal, inductive and deductive reasoning; apply statistical modeling and inference methods; learn tools and techniques for data analysis; develop algorithms to solve problems; design, develop and analyze computational systems; and interpret claims based on computational models and simulations. |
| SB: Social and Behavioral Analysis | Courses in this area examine human individual behaviors, group dynamics and societies. Students explore thought processes, decisions, beliefs, emotions and motivations; examine how individuals develop over the life course and in response to experiences; and study the development and expression of identities, the establishment of social structures and political institutions, and the dynamics of economic systems. |
Curriculum Codes for Curriculum 2020
The information below applies to students entering prior to Fall 2025.
The Trinity undergraduate curriculum categorizes courses to signal how they fulfill general education requirements. Courses may have one or more of the following codes associated with them.
| Code | Description | Type of Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| ALP | Arts, Literatures, and Performance | Areas of Knowledge |
| CZ | Civilizations | Areas of Knowledge |
| NS | Natural Sciences | Areas of Knowledge |
| QS | Quantitative Studies | Areas of Knowledge |
| SS | Social Sciences | Areas of Knowledge |
| CCI | Cross-Cultural Inquiry | Modes of Inquiry |
| EI | Ethical Inquiry | Modes of Inquiry |
| FL | Foreign Languages | Modes of Inquiry |
| R | Research | Modes of Inquiry |
| STS | Science, Technology, and Society | Modes of Inquiry |
| W | Writing | Modes of Inquiry |
- Course code requests by departments must be made before the beginning of the semester in which the course is offered.
- Code changes cannot be made on an ad hoc basis while a course is in progress.
- Changes, once approved, may not be applied retroactively to a course.
Those and only those codes will apply towards a student’s general education requirements. No additional codes will be awarded concurrently or retroactively to that particular offering of the course.
Process to assign curriculum codes to a course:
- The process begins department or program level with a proposal that a course bear certain codes.
- The proposal, depending upon the department or program, may originate with the individual instructor, with the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS), or through collaboration by both.
- The department then submits the proposed codes for consideration by the Arts and Sciences Committee on Courses, which must approve codes.
Courses in Trinity College may have at most two Areas of Knowledge and no more than three Modes of Inquiry codes.
- Because of these limits, coding involves decisions as to which of the various codes best reflect the course content at the time the set of codes is approved.
- If the content (or the instructor) of a course later changes, such that the set of codes that the course bears no longer accurately reflects the course content, the codes may be changed.
- This can happen, however, only following reconsideration by the Courses Committee.
There are several ways to find curriculum codes:
- Log in to DukeHub, click on the "Class Information" tab, then click on "Course Catalog" to see the courses offered in each department or program. When you click to open a class (view sections), you will find the codes under "Class Attributes."
- Search for a course by clicking on the "Enrollment" tab and then use "Schedule Builder to import courses. Curriculum codes will be listed under "Class Attributes" when you open a class.
- You can also look for classes that carry specific course codes (e.g. ALP or R, etc.) through the "Advanced Class Search" tab. You can click on Course Attribute and Course Attribute Value to see classes that are coded for a class attribute that you are looking for.
- Go to registrar.duke.edu, click on the "Registration" tab in the menu and then click on "Course Catalog & Schedule of Classes"