Against Overspecialization

The Harvard Policy Committee's intensive study of the Government Department and the Department's favorable response to the HPC's major proposals acts a solid precedent for the future of the Educational Audit and similar programs. Equally important is the significance of what the HPC's Gov Department report says.

The thrust of the proposed reforms is a call for relief from over-specialization. This is an old complaint, and could probably be made against any department which has concentration requirements. But it is especially relevant in the case of Gov, which requires a student to specialize in one of the Department's three areas and then to take two sets of generals--one in his own and one in all the other areas. Because of the heavy weight given to generals in computing the degree of honors, "take as many gov courses as you can possibly squeeze in" becomes the implicit requirement for those who want to do well. The Department supplements this unwritten rule by also requiring Ec 1 and a year of history.

These requirements, written and unwritten, are unfortunate because government, perhaps more than any of the other social sciences, gains relevance as an area of study by being put in context with related fields. This is not to say that government is not worth studying for its own sake, but--as Harvard's refusal to name its Department "political science" implies--it is not a precise discipline, and the gov major can only gain by drawing from history, sociology, economics, and philosophy. The vast majority of Harvard gov majors, in fact, do not go on to graduate school in government, but use gov as a foundation from which to enter law, journalism, or politics.

The HPC proposals would encourage this more inter-disciplinary approach by reducing (by half) the weight given to generals; by eliminating specifically required related courses; and by substituting a twelve half-course concentration requirement, up to six of which may be in related fields.

By presenting these proposals, the HPC is in effect asking the members of the Gov Department to admit that imparting a specialized knowledge of their field is not their only, nor even necessarily their most important, function. That is a lot to ask of scholars. But the proposals were made in a constructive rather than critical spirit, and by giving them careful consideration the Department could make a real contribution to liberal education in a time of over-specialization.