{"id":419813,"date":"2026-08-29T02:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T02:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419813\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T02:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T02:42:08","slug":"university-of-houston-omits-133-classes-from-2026-27-required-curriculum-list-heights-river-oaks-montrose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419813\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Houston omits 133 classes from 2026-27 required curriculum list | Heights – River Oaks – Montrose"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Houston<\/a> has cut 133 classes from its list of core curriculum after conducting a review mandated by Senate Bill 37<\/a>, which Texas lawmakers passed in June 2025 and went into effect in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Many of the removed courses will still be offered for students, university leaders said Aug. 20<\/a>. However, some professors and students expressed concern about the future of courses cut from the core list.<\/p>\n

How we got here<\/p>\n

On Aug. 20<\/a>, UH\u2019s board of regents<\/a> unanimously approved a list of 147 courses<\/a> for the university\u2019s core curriculum for the 2026-27 school year. In the 2025-26 school year<\/a>, UH offered 280 courses under its core curriculum.<\/p>\n

Under SB 37<\/a>, governing boards of higher education institutions must review their core curriculum lists every five years, with the first review due by Jan. 1, 2027, according to the bill posted on the Texas Legislature\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Core curriculum refers to 42 credit hours that are required for all Texas undergraduate students, according to UH\u2019s website. To receive a bachelor\u2019s degree, students must complete specific numbers of credit hours for the subject areas of:<\/p>\n

CommunicationMathematicsLife and physical scienceLanguage, philosophy and cultureCreative artsAmerican historyGovernment\/political scienceSocial and behavioral sciencesMathematics\/reasoningWriting in the disciplines<\/p>\n

The core curriculum list offers undergraduate students specific course options to fulfill the required 42 credit hours of core courses needed for their bachelor\u2019s degree, according to UH\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

What happened?<\/p>\n

Some courses were removed from UH\u2019s 2026-27 list of core curriculum due to low enrollment or since they were no longer being offered, said Dona Cornell, UH\u2019s vice chancellor for legal affairs and general counsel, during the Aug. 20 meeting.<\/p>\n

A team of faculty reviewed UH\u2019s core curriculum list in June and early July before passing it to administrators, Cornell said.<\/p>\n

Some of the courses offered on the 2025-26 core curriculum list that are not included on the 2026-27 list include:<\/p>\n

Human biology for the informed citizenIntroduction to oceanographyPrinciples of drug addictionBlack liberation theologyModern & rationalism in Islamic traditionThe Bible and pop cultureIntroduction to LGBT studiesIntroduction to women\u2019s studiesGreek & Roman myths of heroesStudies in non-fiction writingShakespeare-major worksImpact of modern technology on societyIntroduction to Asian American studiesIntroduction to C++ programmingTourism<\/p>\n

To view the 2026-27 list of core curriculum, click here<\/a>. To view the 2025-26 list of core curriculum, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The discussion<\/p>\n

During the Aug. 20 board of regents meeting, Ian Kariuki, a UH student and the student body vice president, expressed concern about enrollment being impacted for classes cut from the core curriculum list.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take it from the core now, but as a student, if I see that class is not aligning with my major or my minor, I’m going to be less likely to join those classes,\u201d Kariuki said. \u201cSo meaning less participation, which means in the future we’re going to get rid of those classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Aug. 20, Richard Armstrong, director of classical studies at UH, said educators should have been more involved in the process of reviewing which core courses to cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurriculum needs reviewing, I certainly don’t deny that, but this is supposed to be a conversation among educators. … The problem is it doesn’t look like, from our point of view, there’s much thought involved here, particularly when we look at the practical consequences of cutting 40% of the classes from core,\u201d Armstrong said.<\/p>\n

Some context<\/p>\n

UH officials have been working on updating its list of core curriculum even prior to the SB 37-mandated review, a university spokesperson said via email Aug. 27. The remaining 241 courses were then considered under the SB 37 review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Houston has cut 133 classes from its list of core curriculum after conducting a review…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,52759,146213,146214,146215,146209,36559,146210,146211,146216,146212,513],"class_list":["post-419813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-sb-37","tag-sb-37-core-coures-review","tag-sb-37-uh-core-classes","tag-sb-37-uh-core-curriculum","tag-uh-board-of-regent","tag-uh-board-of-regents","tag-uh-core-classes","tag-uh-cuts-core-classes","tag-uh-removes-classes-from-core-course-list","tag-uh-review-core-curriculum","tag-university-of-houston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}