Creative Inquiry

American general education is arguably one of the few places in global higher education writ large where a university wide curriculum required of all students may be found. How is that curriculum differentially experienced? The University of Kentucky (UK) is one of the few institutions in the United States with a non-humanities based creative educational experience general education requirement. Honors students at UK can meet this requirement through honors specific coursework. What aesthetic literacy do they bring to college and how does this unique curricular requirement extend that knowledge? This presentation shares the results of a phenomenological study exploring students’ creative life stories and the ways in which they bring those stories to their UK Core Arts and Creativity requirement. How do they define creativity, the arts, and their own aesthetics relative to their past experiences, current field of study/major, and future plans? The research design included modified biographic narrative interviews with 25 undergraduates; semi-structured interviews with faculty who teach and assess the Arts & Creativity courses; and document analysis of the Arts & Creativity syllabi and assessment documents. This research provides insights on the ways that personal arts and creativity narratives inform students' understanding of critical thinking, personal freedoms, and the development of creative communities. Implications include a discussion of the democratic potential of the explicit inclusion of creativity in the curriculum and lessons learned from this experiment.