Clusters, the core of the College of Arts & Sciences’ Discovery Curriculum introduced in 2001, have been replaced for students in the class of 2016 and beyond.

They have been replaced with “Integrations,” and the Discovery Curriculum will be succeeded by the new “Integrated InQuiry” (IQ) system, developed collaboratively over a four-year period.

The new curriculum also lowers the minimum grade requirement for Writing 1 and adds more required “language and cultural diversity” (LCD) classes.

University faculty will also offer twelve new “Study Away” programs that will take place overseas during the summer. Another new aspect of the IQ curriculum is also a reconfiguration of clusters.

“There are more options within any specific IQ than within any specific cluster,” Arts & Sciences Dean, Jennifer Romney, said. “The IQs are also more standardized than the clusters. For example, all IQs require two classes, but they have to be classes taken from different departments. Therefore, the IQs have a heavier emphasis on interdisciplinary study than the clusters do.”

The new curriculum requires students to complete a minimum of three Integrations from two different academic areas, one course in each of the Core Skills and three courses in each of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM), Social and Behavioral Sciences (SOC) and the Humanities (HUM).

In addition, students now must complete at least three LCD courses, up from the one required Cultural Diversity class in the Discovery Curriculum.

“The revised curriculum places a greater emphasis on cultural fluency, which is an increasingly important quality for 21st century leaders,” Romney said. “By reconfiguring clusters into the more broadly-conceived IQs, we think students will quite literally be able to see interconnections between classes more clearly.”

The new curriculum also addresses one of the cluster system’s major shortcomings, encouraging students to become more aware of cultural diversity.

“[It] encourages students to integrate their learning not just across classes, but across fields,” Jennifer Smith, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, said. “Some clusters were interdisciplinary, but not all were.”

Additionally, the minimum grade requirement for Writing 1, Applied Numeracy, and Writing Intensive courses has been lowered from a C+ to a C-. University officials said they had evidence that the C+ minimum may have led to grade inflation.

Students are now able to take their required Writing Intensive course before junior year, a change faculty members hope will help those who wish to study abroad.

When the Discovery Curriculum was created, the commission that developed it recommended the curriculum be reevaluated some years in the future. The current changes to the Arts & Sciences curriculum are a result of that review.

Some students have found no problems with the current cluster system.

“I like the system because it forces us to explore other options that we might not have considered when first coming to school,” sophomore Sydney Kapp said. “If you’re on the pre-med track, and take strictly science courses, then your time at Wash. U. wouldn’t be as enriching because you’d be missing out on so much else that the school has to offer.”

There are other students who appreciate the interdisciplinary aspect of the clusters, but not the system itself.

“I personally don’t really like the cluster system,” junior Lucy Huo said. “I understand they’re trying to help us have a broader, more comprehensive education, but it’s just a hassle, especially since I’m trying to graduate early.”

Huo said she has dropped classes she wanted to take in order to fulfill multiple clusters.

“The clusters are not only confusing, but to some extent also limit what classes we can take in the future based on what classes we choose now,” Huo said. “I think it’s important to have a well-rounded education, and I may be old-fashioned for thinking this, but a core curriculum might have been a better way to do it than these clusters.”

The new IQ system aims to fix the confusion many students experience when faced with the cluster system.

“It’s not so much that the IQs allow students to take pairs of courses that the clusters do not, but rather that they are now collected under one IQ rather than broken up over several clusters,” Romney said.