Core Course
In the fall quarter, Academic Literacy and Ethos: Arts of Reading (PRTR 1), the Porter Core Course, is the center of the College’s intellectual life. All Porter freshmen must take Core.
PRTR 1 teaches foundational concepts for intellectual exploration and personal development within an academic community--analysis, critical thinking, metacognition, engagement with others across difference, and self-efficacy. The course also engages Porter’s intellectual tradition of investigating the contribution the arts and humanities make to a good life, a just society, and a flourishing world.
Core Course students also participate in workshops at The Creative Commons. In week ten, Porter Core culminates in EnCore, an exhibition and celebration of student work and a ceremony in which the College Provost and Core faculty award the James B. Hall Prizes for Outstanding Essay and for Outstanding Creative Project and other awards.