Confi's Take on Coles

As this year's editor of the Confidential Guide to Courses, it was my duty to find the guts. To find the good and bad courses as well, but first and foremost to find those guts and expose them to the world. It's essentially a manual for slackers, and it sells very briskly.

But it's not for everyone. Many professors demand attention, production and a willingness to learn. Luckily for them, many students are more than willing to expend the effort necessary to meet and exceed the requirements and expectations of the course, no matter how challenging, and they reap the rewards of a job well done.

These driven people have counterparts in the realm of public service. They are the folks who we see pouring drinks for their little buddies in the dining halls, who toil at Phillips Brooks. House (PBH)late into the night, who work in local women's shelters once a week. They, for personal reasons, have taken it upon themselves to give to the community. They, of course, should be commended.

But they can't be cloned, as Professor Robert Coles '50 would like. His calls for the addition of required community service to classes in the core have been killed repeatedly by faculty committees.

Already, more than one-third of Harvard students perform some sort of public service during their four years here in Cambridge. Through PBH, House and Neighborhood Development (HAND), CityStep and countless other organizations, those who have a desire to participate are not left wanting for outlets.

But what of those who are bereft of desire? What of those who feel as Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 does when he says, "I think the other things I do are more important." If a service requirement is instituted, the natural market force of supply and demand for guts will rear its head yet again, as in this possible excerpt from the 1998-99 Confidential Guide about offerings in the new Community Service Core Program.

Those who want to get away with next to nothing can do so here in Service Athletics B-23: Cambridge Youth Soccer. But watch out, if you get in sections 1-7, you're going to be coaching teams from Cambridgeport. They may not speak English too well, and take a rather dim view of authority. Carding can get ugly here.

But if you can get in Assistant Professor R. Baggio's Section 14, you're on easy street, literally. These kids are the tow-headed progeny of the elite, hailing from the mansions over on Fayerweather. Their parents tip people for services all the time, so who are you to impose your Western Based Altruistic Value System on them? Take your 20 bucks, take your A, and watch your team roll to the championship.

Yes, some would take the former, but most would try to get into that holy section 14. Just as in the academic realm, students will align themselves according to their interest level, time commitments, and pain threshold for the specific sort of material that any given class (or social service program) promises to mete out. Some will undoubtedly take advantage of the programs.

In the end, there will be a situation very similar to the current one, in which one-third care, and two-thirds don't. The difference will be that legions of the old, the young, and the infirm will now have to wonder who belongs to which group.

It is impossible to force people to care about their fellow man, woman, or child; if it weren't, it would have been done a long, long time ago. Besides, there already is a nationwide program in which individuals are forced to perform community service every day. It's called probation.

Edward F. Mulkerin Ill's column appears on alternate Mondays.