CAN THIS CLASS Change your LIFE?

Students rarely give one class credit for changing their lives.

But Matthew M. Briones '94 says General Education 105, "The Literature of Social Reflection," did just that.

Because of his experiences in the class, Briones says he was inspired to become a high school teacher after graduation. At Belmont Hills School, he tried to pass the lessons of the course on to his students by modeling his curriculum on Gen Ed 105.

"For me, it helped focus my own teaching, really quite literally," says Briones, who has now returned to graduate school and works as a teaching fellow in the class. "It really has changed my life."

Real People, Real Problems

Agee Professor of Social Ethics Robert Coles '50, who has been teaching the class for the last 23 years, says he wants students to examine their own lives by reading literature with universal human themes.

"The hope is that the students will take the books to heart," Coles says. "If you read books with seriousness and enthusiasm they can become companions."

The syllabus, which Coles says has remained virtually unchanged since he began teaching the course in 1975, requires students to read works by journalists, doctors and writers including James Agee '34, William Carlos Williams, Raymond Carver and Ralph Ellison.

In section, students are asked to relate the themes of the readings to their own lives. Discussions frequently lead to stories about personal experiences with love, parenthood and other issues.

Students in a recent section used brightly colored markers to draw pictures of a time when they felt out-of-place. The week before, they grappled to define love, by relating stories about their parents and grandparents.

"It's one of the few classes at Harvard that actually deals with real people and gets our heads out of Cambridge a little bit and reminds us that there are real people with real problems out there," says Matthew T. Ozug '00.

Students say this emphasis on the personal makes the class a moving experience-and unique within the Harvard academic experience.

"I think the value of it is simply to be able to take a piece of literature, realize that it hits a theme that runs through everybody's life, no matter the time period you live in," says Scott A. Taylor '99. "It brings into focus the issues that we all deal with no matter where we are."

A New Part of Your Brain

Many Gen Ed 105 enthusiasts say it is a welcome change from the typical Harvard course. Students often spend more time in section discussing themselves than discussing the readings, and Coles often begins lecture by describing the sights on his morning commute to work.

"It's not based upon trying to be a detective when you're reading the book, but trying to really understand what you're reading," says Anand Acharya '99, who is taking the course this semester. "It's like using a whole new part of your brain that hasn't gotten any use at Harvard."

Students say the class is unique in other ways as well, including the anecdotal nature of lectures.

According to Flavia M. Colgan '99, few students take notes in lecture, providing a welcome respite from other classes.

"Take notes on what?" she asks. "On your feelings? On your heart?"

The course also departs from average class procedure by employing people who are not enrolled in Harvard graduate schools as teaching fellows (TF).

Coles says some TFs are ordinary graduate students, but the course strives to find "doctors, lawyers, ordinary parents, people who want to live in some kind of intimacy with these [writers]."

Ozug recalls that his TF last year worked full-time in New York and commuted to teach the section each week.

"He wasn't getting paid," Ozug says. "He's in the kind of world where every minute is dollars. For him to give us that kind of time was an interesting choice."

One such 'real person' who seriously considered becoming a TF for the course last year was music legend Bruce Springstein.

According to Coles, Springsteen heard about the class from a friend in New York. He then contacted Coles because of his specific interest in novelist Walker Percy. Coles says the musician had carried on a correspondence with Percy before the author's death in 1993.

Springsteen drove to Cambridge three times in the fall of 1997 to sit in on lecture and speak to students and TFs.

"He's taken the reading list very seriously," Coles says. "He thought he might want to teach a section. We were about to do it, but he was making a new disc."

Yet "The Boss" hasn't eliminated the possibility of teaching the course in the future, Coles added.

Springsteen wasn't the course's only brush with fame. Coles--who sprinkles his lectures with anecdotes from his friendships with novelists such as Williams--was an early mentor of actor Matt Damon '92-'94.

Gen Ed 105 impressed Damon so much that he later arranged an independent study with Coles to explore the works of Walker Percy.

Damon consulted Coles when he was considering leaving Harvard for Hollywood. The professor's advice?

"Harvard College isn't the only place in the world," Coles told the actor.

'Meditative Moment'

For students who love Gen Ed 105, loyalty to the class inspires extra effort.

Ozug, for example, took the class for credit last fall, but continues to attend lecture this semester--frequently hearing the same anecdotes for the second year in a row.

"It reminds me of a lot of things," he says. "It's still a good reminder, even if I'm not officially enrolled."

Colgan has had a similar experience. Unable to fit the class into her schedule during her first year, she began attending lectures anyway at the advice of her proctor.

"When I first came, I remember my proctor telling me, if you don't go to Gen. Ed 105 first semester, you're going to leave this place," she recalls.

She continued attending lectures her sophomore year and took the class for credit the next year. Now a senior, Colgan still attends the 10 a.m. course regularly.

"The lectures are different every year. Coles doesn't bring in notes--there's always something new," she says. "And more importantly, I'm always different. Each year something different resonates with me."

"It's almost like this meditative moment of grace for me," she added.

And she just can't seem to give it up. A paper Colgan wrote last year for the course might lead to a possible career path. She's taking next year off to expand the idea, which she describes as "very autobiographical," into a full-length novel.

It is not unusual for students to go beyond the call of duty for written assignments for the course.

Briones' final paper was supposed to be 10-15 pages, but ballooned into a 40-page exploration of his relationship with his best friend during high school.

"I bound it, and right after the class was over, I forwarded it to six of my friends," he says. "They have it to this day."

The Flip Side

Yet not every student who participates in Gen Ed 105 finds the experience as powerful as Briones and Colgan.

Some students object to the atmosphere of sections, which Colgan calls "therapy sessions."

Others say the class, however noble its aims, misleads students into thinking it's more distinct from the average Harvard class than it really is.

"It advertises itself as a pause in your Harvard career," says Benjamin D. Florman '99, a Gen Ed 105 alumnus and out-spoken critic. "I think that's completely untrue. I think it has a very clear agenda of its own."

Florman compares the class to Social Analysis 10, "Principles of Economics", where students "think they are going to learn about economics, but instead learn about the professor's conservative view of economics."

Florman, who says he actually agrees with the many of the goals of the class despite his criticisms, also complains that the authors studied are frequently presented as pictures of perfection.

"The parts of the lives which could bring up conflict are overlooked," he says. "I think there's an inherent paternalism towards the people that you're studying, when you're studying them for a purpose which is to love and understand and valorize them."

Coles acknowledges that not every student reacts positively to his class.

"The course has it critics and should have its critics," he says. "I'm glad we have critics."

But he adds that he cannot imagine not teaching the class. Last summer, he was hit by a car and was almost unable to teach the course this year.

"The course changes my life all the time, because I go back to these writers," Coles says. "It affects my thinking and the way I live my life."