College Curriculum

In addition to the Core Course, Porter College offers a changing variety of 2-unit and 5-unit courses. The College is especially dedicated to fostering achievement in the arts and humanities, and its curriculum emphasizes art history, creative writing, dance, environmental art, film and video, literature, philosophy of art, photography, theater arts, and visual art. Students have opportunities to explore studio and theoretical approaches to the arts (including handicraft), interdisciplinary work involving the arts or humanities, and the impact of the arts or humanities in the public sphere.

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.