KU students gather for a class outside Fraser Hall in early spring 2014.

This fall, Kansas University’s ambitious undergraduate curriculum overhaul will head into its sophomore year.

Called the “KU Core,” the new requirements are the biggest change to hit KU undergraduate education in decades and among the biggest in the university’s history.

The new university-wide core curriculum first rolled out in fall 2013. Preceding it was a mad dash by departments to submit courses, and also by the faculty, administrators and students who worked on a committee to approve more than a thousand courses for the new curriculum ahead of the school year.

“I’ve been at KU for 23 years, and I was surprised the university could move this quickly and this effectively on such a big project,” said KU journalism professor Chuck Marsh, who sat on the Core committee at the time. “The pace was just frenetic.”

The committee overseeing the new curriculum approved 1,300 courses for the KU Core’s first semester. They approved another 55 courses in the spring and 79 new courses for the fall 2014 semester, according to KU Public Affairs.

Meant to give students flexibility and boost learning outcomes, the Core comprises 36 hours that are required for all students and revolve around six key learning goals.

Those goals are: critical thinking and quantitative literacy; communication; breadth of knowledge; culture and diversity; social responsibility and ethics; and integration and creativity.

Students have a wide menu to choose from to meet the goals, which are spread throughout a student’s college career. And the lower number of requirements overall can make double majoring easier.

Departments across the university submitted courses they thought met a certain goal, often making tweaks to courses to demonstrate they met the goal and ensure passage into the KU Core. As time goes on, courses will be regularly assessed to make sure they continue to meet a goal’s criteria.

For some goals, students can fill a requirement with out-of-class experiences such as study abroad or volunteer service.

The new curriculum has applied to all new freshman since last fall. Sophomores last year had the chance to opt in, and by summer 2014 nearly 1,400 had done so, according to the public affairs office.

Ann Cudd, vice provost for undergraduate studies and administrative head of the Core committee, said in the spring that student reaction to the new curriculum and its flexibility had been positive.

Cudd’s office has been gathering feedback from new students, but gauging the opinions of freshman can be difficult since they don’t know any different, Cudd said. “For the students, they’re just taking this in stride, I think,” she said.

Will Admussen, a KU sophomore in political science and economics who sat on the Student Senate’s freshman retention committee, said he likes the simplicity of the curriculum.

“It gives me flexibility where I don’t have to take one class to fulfill the requirement,” he said. “The Core really allows you to get into your major quicker.”

While some faculty and staff have raised concerns that the KU Core could allow students to chart the easiest possible path through their education, Admussen said he hasn’t seen that.

“KU students are passionate about the issues they’re interested in,” he said. “They don’t want to sit through big lecture classes to check off all those monotonous requirements.”