Core Structure Often Fails Undergrads

Every Thursday at 9 a.m. during the fall semester last year, Diana I. Williams '95 filed into a tiny, overheated seminar room in William James Hall for her Foreign Cultures 46 section.

Williams estimates that there were 18 students packed into the room, and there were not enough chairs for all of them. Some were forced to stand or lean on window sills for the entire hour.

In that atmosphere, students learned little about the sociology of Caribbean nations, the class's topic.

"There was not a lot of discussion," she says.

If Williams' section had been what Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell calls the "optimal" size of 12 to 16, students might have had--at the very least--a place to sit.

Good sections, in Buell's words, are "really indispensable to the attainment of good learning."

But interviews with more than 75 students, 80 teaching fellows and 40 Professors and administrators reveal that useless sections like Williams' are common in Harvard's vaunted core curriculum.

And the University has been unwilling to spend the money necessary to get smaller sections in which discussion might be more productive.

"Everyone would love [sections] to be smaller, but the cost would rise dramatically," says Director of the Core Program Susan W. Lewis.

In fact, a two-month Crimson investigation found that many undergraduates are alienated by the core's entire structure, which limits student choice and result in overcrowded sections and lectures.

Because of these problems, the core is failing in its mission. The program is supposed to be the key educational "beginning point" that draws students into new disciplines, Buell says, but undergraduates say that many core courses actually turn them off to learning.

"I do not think anyone come out of a [core] course thinking I really want to study more of that," says Ali Partovi '94. "They are not motivating."

Too Large

In a Crimson poll of 341 undergraduates, more than 70 percent said that the 20-person maximum for undergraduates sections is too large.

And students and TFs say that in the core, sections often break that limit.

Her core sections have been "huge, 20 or over," says one student, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Unless you are a really talkative person, you cannot get a word in."

Core teaching fellows say they rarely see a small section.

"18 or 20 is common in the core," says Jonathan Dresner, head TF in Historical Study A-14. "I have never heard of anything smaller than 17."

"I have sections of 23 people," adds Foreign Cultures 14 TF Jonah Blank.

Those numbers contrast markedly with the numbers of students TFs find in most tutorials and department classes.

"History has a goal of eight for tutorials, with an upper limit of 15," says Historical Study A-42 TF Russell Martin.

But in his core class, he had a section of "21 or 22 students" that was so big he divided it in two, he says.

"I voluntarily split up my group," says Martin, who was not paid extra for teaching the additional section. "it isless work to teach."

The problem for core sections is that studentsfrom widely different academic backgrounds arethrown together into the same core class.

Section is supposed to bridge the gaps throughcooperative discussion, but students and teachersagree this is impossible with 20 people or more.

Trey Grayson '94 says his TF in Moral Reasoning22 "tried" to make an overcrowded section work.

"But there were 20 to 25 people in thesection," Grayson says. "When there are that manypeople from all walks of life with all differentlevels of ability, and the section has only anhour, it does not work."

In the core, students say the swollen sectionsare usually either "lecture format" gatheringswith no discussion whatsoever, or situations wherea few knowledgeable students dominate a largenumber of silent ones.

"It was a lot easier for dominant people totake over. Up to 75 percent of the students nevertalked," says Kimberly A. Williams '95 of theearly, overcrowded weeks of her Literature andArts A-24 section. "Easily half the class wouldn'tspeak."

TFs see the same patterns in core sections butsay that with the large size, they are helpless tosolve them.

In his overly-large sections, it is "more likea press conference where you are fieldingquestions," says Historical Study A-12 TF EricThun.

Patri J. Pugliese, head teaching fellow inScience B-17, says that in sections of more that15 people, "it becomes very easy for students tohide."

"It is hard for me to tell if they are sittingback or are lost," Pugliese says.

Professors as well as TFs are nearly unanimousin their call for a section size of "below 15" intheir classes.

"It is no longer a section at 20 or 25students," says Higginson Professor of EnglishLiterature Larry D. Benson, who teaches Literatureand Arts A-13. "It is a lecture."

But Buell says core sections will likelystay large. Shrinking them is not necessarily thetop priority in the Faculty budget, he says.

"I would have to be persuaded that core sectionclaims are more important than department sectionclaims," he says.

The budget constraints are not the only reasonbehind huge core sections.

Many teaching fellows fault the core office forfailing to allot enough section leaders forclasses which grow dramatically during shoppingperiod.

A few section leaders point to grossunderestimations. For example, Moral Reasoning 40initially hired enough TFs for 200 students, butended up drawing nearly 500, says head TFChristopher Chandler.

And some say core office underestimates are notjust mistakes, but systematic efforts to savemoney.

"The core office underestimates every coursebecause once the staff members are hired, theycannot be fired," says Robert D. Gale, headteaching fellow for Foreign Cultures 56.

Lewis defends the core office's estimatesystem, which is based on the enrollment of thecourse the last time it was offered.

"Our track record is better than thedepartments," Lewis says. And she adds that theshopping period--not the core office--isresponsible for staffing problems in course.

But some section leaders say that even after acore course finds itself dramaticallyunderstaffed, it cannot always get the TFs itneeds.

Blank says he teaches an extra section for freebecause the core office denied his appeal foranother teaching fellow.

"I had to turn away people to other sections,"Blank says. "We should have had at least one moresection for the class, but the core program didnot see it that way."

Sections are not the only aspect of thecore class structure that alienates students andmakes teaching difficult.

"Cores are so big," says Literature and ArtsA-16 head teaching fellow Cambille Lizarribar. "Ithink if students do not get to touch base withsomeone on a more personal level, then you lose alot."

According to figures provided by the Office ofthe Registrar and the core office, enrollments incore classes this year have included lectures of933 (Moral Reasoning 22), 866 (Social Analysis10), 567 (Literature and Arts A-66) and 475 (MoralReasoning 40) (Please see graphic, thispage).

Cores consistently make up at least half of theCollege's 10 largest classes, says Greg Atkinson,department administrator in the registrar'soffice.

The huge lectures make it difficult for thecore to accomplish any of the tasks it isassigned.

Students who can sleep in the back of a largelecture hall can drift through the semesterwithout connecting with the course material.Lectures provide "comfortable anonymity," saysNora E. Connell '94.

And in large cores, "you do not get to be intouch with the professors," says Brian J. Hunt'95.

The lack of contact with professors in coresmakes them even less likely to engage students inunfamiliar topics.

"I really think that students in theirbeginning years need to have morestudent-professor contact than there is to gobeyond the lecture," says Foreign Cultures 14 TFAdnan Afridi '92.

Professors say it is also difficult of monitorthe effects of their lectures on core students insuch large classes.

Weary Professor of German and comparativeLiterature Judith L. Ryan says core lectures cuther off from students to such an extent that thereis a "remote control effect."

When professors do manage to bridge the gapbetween distant lecturer and large audience,students say cores can be a more personalexperience--one more likely to engage them in anew topic.

Mark J. Adams '94 says he enjoyed Literatureand Arts C-37 partially because Starr Professor ofClassical, Modern Jewish and Hebrew literatureJames L. Kugel took the time to talk to him whenhe was transferring into the class.

"He wasn't in a hurry to get off the phone withme," Adams says.

A few professors do try to maintain contactwith students.

"I lead section to stay in touch withundergraduate thinking," says Professor ofGovernment Peter A. Hall, who teaches HistoricalStudy A-72. "Without leading section, it is harderto assess whether the material is going over,being understood."

But most professors rely on office hours, wherestudents can sometimes encounter lines and crowdsto speak to their teachers.

"In office hours there are typically morestudents outside the office than can be handled,"says Associate Professor of Government AshutoshVarshney, who teaches Foreign Cultures 14.

Many students simply end up avoiding officehours altogether.

"A lot of these professors are so hard to getto," says Evelyn J. Kim '95. "With 15 peoplewaiting for office hours, what's the point?"

Huge core classes are also hard toorganize and administer, teaching fellows say.

"The classes are very large and theadministration is rough," says Norman Grogin, a TFin Science A-35. It is "hard to keep lines ofcontact open," he says.

The time spent organizing textbooks and roomsfor sections often wastes classtime in the hugecores, TFs say. The logistics are complicated bythe shopping period rush.

As late as mid-March, students in ForeignCultures 40 still had no books and couldn't readfor their looming midterm, TF Tonia Sharlach saidat the time.

"The apparatus for handling such a large classdoes not seem to be working," she said. "Thestudents are really frustrated....Even if theywant to do the reading, they cannot find it."

Some teaching fellows also complain of the coreoffice's inability to deal with the needs of a bigclass.

One teaching fellow, speaking on condition ofanonymity, says that when he asked the core officefor help, staff members were "unspeakable rude."

"I have to pay for things out of my ownpocket," he says.

Other teaching fellows complain of not beingable to get desktop copies of course books forthemselves, and of the core office failing tosupply such needs as chalk.

"At times when we order books for the TFs--thedesktop copies--the books have not arrived yet,"says Literature and Arts A-19 head TF AnnaStavrakopoulou. Core TFs order their own "desktopcopies" from the core office.

"We cannot buy them since it is kind ofdifficult to be reimbursed [by the core office],"Stavrakopoulou says.

To solve problems of section coordination inlarge classes, most classes have weekly meetingsbetween section leaders and professors. But thelarge the class, the more difficult it is.

It's often "hard to get sections coordinated,"says Jonathan Kawamura, a teaching fellow inScience A-35.

The result is that many students findbadly-planned sections are no help in their coreclasses.

For instances, Ethan N. Nasr '96 says hisScience A-35 and Science B-16 sections addednothing to the lectures in the classes.

"They're not saying anything...new," Nasr says."They become almost like mandatory office hours."

But students' most persistent complaintabout the core's structure is how few courseoptions it offers.

"Harvard says, `look at all these wonderfulcore classes we have,' but so few are offered eachsemester," says Christopher Basaldu '94. "Peopleare expected to spend 25 percent of their timetaking two percent of Harvard's offered courses."

The limited offerings are the result of corepolicy. According to Harvard's guide to the corecurriculum, "the total number of courses that maybe offered under any area is deliberately limitedto ten or twelve courses each year."

"One of the main problems is that we don't getmuch choice in what to take," says Antony R.Garcia '93-'94. "You look in the catalog and halfaren't given this year and others aren't giventhis semester."

As a result, students are often stuck inclasses which they never would take voluntarily.

"In Historical Study B, I had trouble finding acourse and ended up taking something I hadmarginal interest in," says Samuel A. Hilton '94.

"You take the one that sounds least boring,"says Lisa M. Robinson '94.

It is difficult to make uninterested studentspay attention or get anything out of a class theyhave no interest in, teaching fellows and studentssay.

"People in the class aren't necessarily in theclass because they're interested, so discussioncan tend to lag," says Mark H. Baskin '95, ahistory major.

The answer to the lack of course selection is amore flexible core, students say. They would liketo substitute classes in departments for thedistribution offered by the core.

"My freshman year, I took six differentdepartment courses, so I wasted five electiveswhich they wouldn't let me count toward my corerequirements," says Matt S. Abramson '96, a finearts concentrator.

"The problem with the core is that it'sinflexible," Abramson says. "You have to take abogus core where they don't give you much exposureto the department or teach you much that isvaluable."

Most students say they are interested in takingclasses in a variety of subjects, but they want tochoose their own courses.

"I would have preferred a general class on arthistory," says Davis J. Wang '97, who tookLiterature and Arts B-39, a course that focused onMichaelangelo.

"My personal view of the core is that all thecore classes, not just the science courses, shouldbe susceptible to replacement by departmentcourses," says Elye J. Alexander '94, an Englishconcentrator.

Currently, only Science A and Science B allowstudents to opt out of cores for departmentofferings.

And lately, Professor of Astronomy and theHistory of Science Owen J. Gingerich, who teachesScience B-17, says he has noted an exodus ofstudents into the department offerings.

"Student enrollment in many of the very finecore science classes has been dropping below acritical mass because the students are going intointroductory courses," Gingerich says. "Theenrollment is half of what it was six or sevenyears ago."

But not every core class is hobbled bythe structural limitations of large sections,large lectures and lack of choice.

Juliet E. Brause '96 says literature and ArtsB-18 was one of the best classes she has taken atHarvard.

"I put in a lot of time," Brause says. "All theall-nighters I pulled last year were for thatclass."

Literature and Arts B-18 is a studio class,with about 30 students.

The coursework included such activities as atrip to Boston and building furniture, Brausesays. And Professor of Visual and EnvironmentalStudies Louis J. Bakananowsky knew everyone's name"after the first half-hour."

In fact, Literature and Arts B-18--with itssmall size, hands-on participation andprofessor-student contact--fulfilled the vision ofa core that draws people into new fields ofknowledge.

Brause says the class encouraged her toconsider a concentration in Visual andEnvironmental Studies, although she decided onbiology.

But in Harvard's core curriculum only about 30students each semester get to have thisexperience.

In the core, says Ian T. Kennish '94,"Sometimes there just doesn't seem to be that muchout there."CrimsonJennifer J. Baik

The problem for core sections is that studentsfrom widely different academic backgrounds arethrown together into the same core class.

Section is supposed to bridge the gaps throughcooperative discussion, but students and teachersagree this is impossible with 20 people or more.

Trey Grayson '94 says his TF in Moral Reasoning22 "tried" to make an overcrowded section work.

"But there were 20 to 25 people in thesection," Grayson says. "When there are that manypeople from all walks of life with all differentlevels of ability, and the section has only anhour, it does not work."

In the core, students say the swollen sectionsare usually either "lecture format" gatheringswith no discussion whatsoever, or situations wherea few knowledgeable students dominate a largenumber of silent ones.

"It was a lot easier for dominant people totake over. Up to 75 percent of the students nevertalked," says Kimberly A. Williams '95 of theearly, overcrowded weeks of her Literature andArts A-24 section. "Easily half the class wouldn'tspeak."

TFs see the same patterns in core sections butsay that with the large size, they are helpless tosolve them.

In his overly-large sections, it is "more likea press conference where you are fieldingquestions," says Historical Study A-12 TF EricThun.

Patri J. Pugliese, head teaching fellow inScience B-17, says that in sections of more that15 people, "it becomes very easy for students tohide."

"It is hard for me to tell if they are sittingback or are lost," Pugliese says.

Professors as well as TFs are nearly unanimousin their call for a section size of "below 15" intheir classes.

"It is no longer a section at 20 or 25students," says Higginson Professor of EnglishLiterature Larry D. Benson, who teaches Literatureand Arts A-13. "It is a lecture."

But Buell says core sections will likelystay large. Shrinking them is not necessarily thetop priority in the Faculty budget, he says.

"I would have to be persuaded that core sectionclaims are more important than department sectionclaims," he says.

The budget constraints are not the only reasonbehind huge core sections.

Many teaching fellows fault the core office forfailing to allot enough section leaders forclasses which grow dramatically during shoppingperiod.

A few section leaders point to grossunderestimations. For example, Moral Reasoning 40initially hired enough TFs for 200 students, butended up drawing nearly 500, says head TFChristopher Chandler.

And some say core office underestimates are notjust mistakes, but systematic efforts to savemoney.

"The core office underestimates every coursebecause once the staff members are hired, theycannot be fired," says Robert D. Gale, headteaching fellow for Foreign Cultures 56.

Lewis defends the core office's estimatesystem, which is based on the enrollment of thecourse the last time it was offered.

"Our track record is better than thedepartments," Lewis says. And she adds that theshopping period--not the core office--isresponsible for staffing problems in course.

But some section leaders say that even after acore course finds itself dramaticallyunderstaffed, it cannot always get the TFs itneeds.

Blank says he teaches an extra section for freebecause the core office denied his appeal foranother teaching fellow.

"I had to turn away people to other sections,"Blank says. "We should have had at least one moresection for the class, but the core program didnot see it that way."

Sections are not the only aspect of thecore class structure that alienates students andmakes teaching difficult.

"Cores are so big," says Literature and ArtsA-16 head teaching fellow Cambille Lizarribar. "Ithink if students do not get to touch base withsomeone on a more personal level, then you lose alot."

According to figures provided by the Office ofthe Registrar and the core office, enrollments incore classes this year have included lectures of933 (Moral Reasoning 22), 866 (Social Analysis10), 567 (Literature and Arts A-66) and 475 (MoralReasoning 40) (Please see graphic, thispage).

Cores consistently make up at least half of theCollege's 10 largest classes, says Greg Atkinson,department administrator in the registrar'soffice.

The huge lectures make it difficult for thecore to accomplish any of the tasks it isassigned.

Students who can sleep in the back of a largelecture hall can drift through the semesterwithout connecting with the course material.Lectures provide "comfortable anonymity," saysNora E. Connell '94.

And in large cores, "you do not get to be intouch with the professors," says Brian J. Hunt'95.

The lack of contact with professors in coresmakes them even less likely to engage students inunfamiliar topics.

"I really think that students in theirbeginning years need to have morestudent-professor contact than there is to gobeyond the lecture," says Foreign Cultures 14 TFAdnan Afridi '92.

Professors say it is also difficult of monitorthe effects of their lectures on core students insuch large classes.

Weary Professor of German and comparativeLiterature Judith L. Ryan says core lectures cuther off from students to such an extent that thereis a "remote control effect."

When professors do manage to bridge the gapbetween distant lecturer and large audience,students say cores can be a more personalexperience--one more likely to engage them in anew topic.

Mark J. Adams '94 says he enjoyed Literatureand Arts C-37 partially because Starr Professor ofClassical, Modern Jewish and Hebrew literatureJames L. Kugel took the time to talk to him whenhe was transferring into the class.

"He wasn't in a hurry to get off the phone withme," Adams says.

A few professors do try to maintain contactwith students.

"I lead section to stay in touch withundergraduate thinking," says Professor ofGovernment Peter A. Hall, who teaches HistoricalStudy A-72. "Without leading section, it is harderto assess whether the material is going over,being understood."

But most professors rely on office hours, wherestudents can sometimes encounter lines and crowdsto speak to their teachers.

"In office hours there are typically morestudents outside the office than can be handled,"says Associate Professor of Government AshutoshVarshney, who teaches Foreign Cultures 14.

Many students simply end up avoiding officehours altogether.

"A lot of these professors are so hard to getto," says Evelyn J. Kim '95. "With 15 peoplewaiting for office hours, what's the point?"

Huge core classes are also hard toorganize and administer, teaching fellows say.

"The classes are very large and theadministration is rough," says Norman Grogin, a TFin Science A-35. It is "hard to keep lines ofcontact open," he says.

The time spent organizing textbooks and roomsfor sections often wastes classtime in the hugecores, TFs say. The logistics are complicated bythe shopping period rush.

As late as mid-March, students in ForeignCultures 40 still had no books and couldn't readfor their looming midterm, TF Tonia Sharlach saidat the time.

"The apparatus for handling such a large classdoes not seem to be working," she said. "Thestudents are really frustrated....Even if theywant to do the reading, they cannot find it."

Some teaching fellows also complain of the coreoffice's inability to deal with the needs of a bigclass.

One teaching fellow, speaking on condition ofanonymity, says that when he asked the core officefor help, staff members were "unspeakable rude."

"I have to pay for things out of my ownpocket," he says.

Other teaching fellows complain of not beingable to get desktop copies of course books forthemselves, and of the core office failing tosupply such needs as chalk.

"At times when we order books for the TFs--thedesktop copies--the books have not arrived yet,"says Literature and Arts A-19 head TF AnnaStavrakopoulou. Core TFs order their own "desktopcopies" from the core office.

"We cannot buy them since it is kind ofdifficult to be reimbursed [by the core office],"Stavrakopoulou says.

To solve problems of section coordination inlarge classes, most classes have weekly meetingsbetween section leaders and professors. But thelarge the class, the more difficult it is.

It's often "hard to get sections coordinated,"says Jonathan Kawamura, a teaching fellow inScience A-35.

The result is that many students findbadly-planned sections are no help in their coreclasses.

For instances, Ethan N. Nasr '96 says hisScience A-35 and Science B-16 sections addednothing to the lectures in the classes.

"They're not saying anything...new," Nasr says."They become almost like mandatory office hours."

But students' most persistent complaintabout the core's structure is how few courseoptions it offers.

"Harvard says, `look at all these wonderfulcore classes we have,' but so few are offered eachsemester," says Christopher Basaldu '94. "Peopleare expected to spend 25 percent of their timetaking two percent of Harvard's offered courses."

The limited offerings are the result of corepolicy. According to Harvard's guide to the corecurriculum, "the total number of courses that maybe offered under any area is deliberately limitedto ten or twelve courses each year."

"One of the main problems is that we don't getmuch choice in what to take," says Antony R.Garcia '93-'94. "You look in the catalog and halfaren't given this year and others aren't giventhis semester."

As a result, students are often stuck inclasses which they never would take voluntarily.

"In Historical Study B, I had trouble finding acourse and ended up taking something I hadmarginal interest in," says Samuel A. Hilton '94.

"You take the one that sounds least boring,"says Lisa M. Robinson '94.

It is difficult to make uninterested studentspay attention or get anything out of a class theyhave no interest in, teaching fellows and studentssay.

"People in the class aren't necessarily in theclass because they're interested, so discussioncan tend to lag," says Mark H. Baskin '95, ahistory major.

The answer to the lack of course selection is amore flexible core, students say. They would liketo substitute classes in departments for thedistribution offered by the core.

"My freshman year, I took six differentdepartment courses, so I wasted five electiveswhich they wouldn't let me count toward my corerequirements," says Matt S. Abramson '96, a finearts concentrator.

"The problem with the core is that it'sinflexible," Abramson says. "You have to take abogus core where they don't give you much exposureto the department or teach you much that isvaluable."

Most students say they are interested in takingclasses in a variety of subjects, but they want tochoose their own courses.

"I would have preferred a general class on arthistory," says Davis J. Wang '97, who tookLiterature and Arts B-39, a course that focused onMichaelangelo.

"My personal view of the core is that all thecore classes, not just the science courses, shouldbe susceptible to replacement by departmentcourses," says Elye J. Alexander '94, an Englishconcentrator.

Currently, only Science A and Science B allowstudents to opt out of cores for departmentofferings.

And lately, Professor of Astronomy and theHistory of Science Owen J. Gingerich, who teachesScience B-17, says he has noted an exodus ofstudents into the department offerings.

"Student enrollment in many of the very finecore science classes has been dropping below acritical mass because the students are going intointroductory courses," Gingerich says. "Theenrollment is half of what it was six or sevenyears ago."

But not every core class is hobbled bythe structural limitations of large sections,large lectures and lack of choice.

Juliet E. Brause '96 says literature and ArtsB-18 was one of the best classes she has taken atHarvard.

"I put in a lot of time," Brause says. "All theall-nighters I pulled last year were for thatclass."

Literature and Arts B-18 is a studio class,with about 30 students.

The coursework included such activities as atrip to Boston and building furniture, Brausesays. And Professor of Visual and EnvironmentalStudies Louis J. Bakananowsky knew everyone's name"after the first half-hour."

In fact, Literature and Arts B-18--with itssmall size, hands-on participation andprofessor-student contact--fulfilled the vision ofa core that draws people into new fields ofknowledge.

Brause says the class encouraged her toconsider a concentration in Visual andEnvironmental Studies, although she decided onbiology.

But in Harvard's core curriculum only about 30students each semester get to have thisexperience.

In the core, says Ian T. Kennish '94,"Sometimes there just doesn't seem to be that muchout there."CrimsonJennifer J. Baik