Seedy Core

THE 36-PAGE REPORT on the core curriculum released by the Faculty two weeks ago marks a major step in the long history of General Education at Harvard. Since Harvard helps set the pace for academic trends, the report could have broader ramifications at schools throughout the country.

The report is the culmination of three-and-a-half years of effort and an attempt by worried professors to devise a scheme to provide a better education for students at Harvard. The central questions--the questions that have historically dominated debates over General Education--remain fairly clear: What is an "educated" person? Who should decide when and how a person is to be educated?

The answers to these complex questions that the curriculum report provides exude a confidence that makes them immediately suspect. The rigidity of the guidelines for the proposed core courses suggests that the Harvard Faculty feels it has a monopoly on the ability to understand the real meaning of the vague concept of education.

Of course, on a more basic level, people seem to agree on what education means. One must know how to read, one must understand the rudiments of the rationalistic-scientific consciousness that pervades modern societies, one must learn the basic responsibilities of citizenship in order to be able to function as a member of society, etc.

Presumably, however, Harvard students have attained a level of sophistication that allows them to make certain decisions concerning their own lives with more insight than members of the Faculty could; to suggest otherwise seems condescending and arrogant on the part of Harvard professors.

Many members of the Faculty agree, and eschew the responsibility of closely monitoring the academic lives of students. They deny that any group of persons--even the Faculty of Harvard University--should infringe upon the degree of academic freedom of choice that exists here today.

The General Education reforms proposed in the report would further divide the five basic academic categories bandied about last year, creating ten specific required areas. The report carefully stipulates how professors must structure these courses, what the aims of these courses must be, and a host of other requriements that would restrict professors teaching core courses from presenting the course material in an innovative and individualistic manner. A standing committee on the core curriculum would monitor the core courses to insure that these courses were kept in accord with the aims of General Education as elucidated in the core report.

Thus, professors and students alike will be affected by this usurpation of individual decision-making by the Faculty and the core subcommittees. There are indeed valid points to be made on both sides of the question. It is important, however, that all those who can influence the final decision on the adoption of the report's proposals realize the extent to which these reforms will transform General Education and, more importantly, the academic ambience at Harvard.

ONE ISSUE that needs clarification is the question of how many core courses the University will offer, and the corollary of this question--will the core courses invariably be large, impersonal lecture courses? So far, no one involved with the overhauling of Gen Ed will volunteer a specific response. Members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) said last week that during a closed meeting with the designers of the new core curriculum they inferred that about 30 core courses, each with an enrollment of approximately 200 students, would be created--a contention several authors of the core's report immediately denied. Nevertheless, students, professors and administrators should be aware of the specifics of the Gen Ed revisions before forming an opinion.

Another central question-a question that presupposes the inevitability of the Faculty voting for some kind of astringent core curriculum--is whether students will be represented on the core subcommittees. Last week members of the Faculty Council insouciantly ignored a request by the CUE and the ERG to provide for such student representation, and also turned their backs on a host of other recommendations including the establishment of a departmental by-pass mechanism. This merely added insult to injury. The total indifference of the Faculty Council to student opinions can do nothing but foment a somewhat cynical and defiant attitude among students. It becomes difficult for students to discern the differences between liberal Harvard and their equally paternalistic high schools back home. Representation on these committees would be a token of the acknowledgement that students have influence on the choice of courses they are required to take.

The Faculty-appointed committees that developed the core report took the original suggestion of five areas of study, tentatively advanced by a subcommittee last spring, and stretched it to ten. In the opinion of many student and faculty members, these requirements are excessive. One might accept five areas for the sake of pragmatism, but ten are too Draconian to tolerate.

A more modest set of proposals is needed. The authors of the core curriculum seem to have forgotten the liberal ideas that in this century persuaded universities throughout the country to allow their students more liberty of choice, ideas which have done far more to heighten the efficiency of individual education than the advocates of this oppressive new program are willing to concede. There is not an absolute truth, nor is there only one way to educate students. Fanatical Marxists say the core simply perpetuates bourgeois ideology, committed libertarians will scream Communist Indoctrination. Through the mist of this type of critical extremism, one can discern an interesting point. It would be better for all if a less rigid core was devised and if the University did not attempt such a drastic confiscation of freedom of choice for its students.