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Complex Questions: Global Challenges & Social Justice Curriculum
Director: Professor Judith Lewin (English), education@union.edu
Union College’s Complex Questions curriculum helps students reap the benefits of a liberal arts education. Driven by our longstanding college-wide commitment to lifelong learning with social purpose, the curriculum creates opportunities for students to engage with the complex, pervasive nature of many global and social issues using different disciplinary perspectives to address them.
Students take courses from two major Areas of Inquiry - Justice, Equity, Identity, and Difference (JEID) and Global Challenges (GC) - and study themes in these areas as they recur in a variety of liberal arts perspectives. More in depth definitions of these terms (Areas of Inquiry, Perspectives) may be found, along with answers to many other frequently asked questions, at the Complex Questions: Global Challenges and Social Justice website. For example:
• All Perspectives courses incorporate one of the two Areas of Inquiry.
• Students may satisfy any of the requirements except FYI/FYI-H and WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) by taking approved courses on campus or during terms abroad. A comprehensive list of CQ-approved courses is updated after each academic term (see Approved Courses to download an excel sheet).
• Courses other than FYI/FYI-H that count toward the Complex Questions curriculum may also be used toward major or minor requirements (unless specifically prohibited by a particular program or department).
• Students entering in the Fall of 2025 and later are required to take eight Perspectives courses.
Further discussion of academic policies and administrative procedures for the Complex Questions Curriculum can be found in the Complex Questions Curriculum Advising Guide located in the Resources Section of the Complex Questions website. Students and advisors will find extensive explanations about the curriculum, its rationale, and how to incorporate it thoughtfully into a four-year course of study at Union College.
In overview:
Build Intellectual Foundations through First-Year Inquiry Courses
First-Year Inquiry (FYI-100) is taken during the first or second terms of college and engages students in the exploration of ideas and diverse perspectives through critical reading, thinking, and writing. These courses are designed to introduce critical inquiry across the disciplines at Union, with a focus on open-ended questions. Note that students in the Scholars Program take Scholars Inquiry (FYI-100H). More information is available at Complex Questions: First-Year Inquiry.
Experience Both Areas of Inquiry
Each Complex Questions course falls under one of our two Areas of Inquiry: Global Challenges (G), and Justice, Equity, Identity, and Diversity (J). You must take at least one G course and one J course, but you decide how to distribute the Perspectives.
Explore Eight Disciplinary Perspectives on Global Challenges & Social Justice
- In Creative Works/Arts and Design (CAD) courses students experience and engage critically with creative production in an area of inquiry in a historical or contemporary context. Such courses enable students to develop and cultivate a sensory and/or experiential literacy that will refine their ability to be active, critical thinkers and creators.
- In Cultural and Historical Foundations (CHF) courses students learn to recognize change and continuity in patterns of beliefs, practices, and policies that inform the organization of communities, societies, and nations, as well as the cultural identities of individuals. Such courses may compare or contrast human experiences across global or within national boundaries.
- Data and Quantitative Reasoning (DQR) courses introduce students to mathematical, statistical, or computational methods for reasoning with data or quantitative analysis. Students identify and construct questions, apply appropriate methods to investigate them, and develop skills to engage with societal problems or global challenges using quantitative/data-driven means.
- In Engineering, Technology and Society (ETS) courses students engage with engineering design or software development practices and ways of thinking to understand how technology is and has been used to address complex problems. These courses ask students to consider how technological innovation can both deliberately and accidentally disrupt economies, cultures, politics and relationships, while engaging with difficult moral and ethical questions.
- In Literatures (LIT) courses students study literary texts, which may include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, and film. The texts and discussions may focus on global concerns or relations between the individual and the communal. Coursework develops students’ textual (or visual) literacies while developing a familiarity with the relevant imaginative, historical, philosophical, and related aesthetic forms and contexts of literary works.
- Natural and Physical Sciences (NPS) courses immerse students in hands-on, inquiry-based learning of scientific principles and processes through laboratory or field exercises. rounded in the knowledge and understanding of the world around us, students explore how science can shape society and how human influence or activity may disrupt natural processes.
- In Social Analysis, Politics and Ethics (SPE) courses students acquire the methods or learn the theories of social, political, and/or ethical and moral inquiry. Students learn to engage with and help develop new ways of thinking about ethical dilemmas, environmental and social problems, while considering the ramifications of alternative solutions.
- In World Languages (WOL) courses students explore how a non-English world language as a system of communication reveals aspects of human experience unknown to monolinguists. Students develop cultural competency, gain historical understanding, and participate meaningfully in multilingual communities at home and around the world, preparing them to confront both social and global questions. Language immersion courses taken abroad may count for this requirement.
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