Reinventing Harvard’s Core Curriculum

Today, the curriculum that has served as the model of education for a generation faces its most intense scrutiny to date.

But the scene could have been set 30 years earlier.

In the first of two symposia designed to foster discussion on the first widescale review of Harvard’s curriculum since the 1974, Dean of Undergraduate Benedict H. Gross ’71 will preside over a panel addressing the traditional arguments for and against the Core.

Broadcast on the web from the FAS home page, the symposium will feature four “long-term servants of the Core”— Harvard College Professor Jorge I. Dominguez, Gurney Professor of English Literature James Engell, Ford Professor of Social Sciences David Pilbeam and Harvard College Professor Maria M. Tatar.

Chosen for their variety of perspectives of the Core, they will speak on subjects such as “my love-hate relationship with the Core” and “the virtues of the defects.”

After each 15 minute speech, Gross will challenge each viewpoint and then allow for general comments at the end of the evening.

Gross says that the symposium—a forum aiming to see which ideas can survive criticism—is the ideal way to inform students and faculty about the myriad issues surrounding the Core.

And according to Gross, the discussion phase is necessary before the formation of a task force on “general education” in January and eventual policy changes.

While Gross emphasizes the need to educate the audience, several professors say it is unlikely audience members will hear anything new tonight.

“I find this idea of reviewing the Core every four or five years idiotic. Ultimately these reviews are repetitive and we hear the same arguments each time,” said Buttenweser University Professor Stanley H. Hoffmann.

Dominguez, who served on the Faculty Council during the original implementation of the Core, agrees that the issues are not new ones.

“I have heard no suggestion that I have not heard 20-odd years ago,” he says. “It is not that at the moment of the foundation of the Core these issues were overlooked.”

But unlike Hoffman, Dominguez says he is “perfectly comfortable revisiting these questions” given the new generation of students and faculty.

“The main point is to ask whether faculty believe in the Core or not,” he says.

Others support the current review, concerned that the Core’s value has diminished since its inception.

“I have not found it particularly enjoyable teaching in the Core this time around,” says Pilbeam, who recently ended a 15-year hiatus from teaching in the Core. “There has been a shifting of attitudes.”

Many of those supporting the current efforts see the same potential for change as emerged 30 years ago.

“It was [former Dean of the Faculty Henry A.] Rosovky’s vision to find ways to engage the Faculty,” Tartar says. “We needed an institutional change...I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see a dramatic change [again].”

Common Roots

What Dominguez cites as the potential for “a new educational adventure” is only one comparison between this review and the one in 1974 resulting in the Core.

According to legend, the 1974 review began when then-President Derek C. Bok asked Rosovsky what is meant by the president’s welcoming of the graduating class into the “company of educated men” every Commencement.

The result was a multi-year review of the entire College’s curriculum, conceived by a 10-page letter Rosovsky sent to the Faculty in 1974. That letter has since stood as a treatise on undergraduate education.

Citing “vast changes in advanced research in the past few decades” and the “formalistic” distinction between general education and the concentrations, Rosovky called for a major effort to ensure that “the people who intellectually sustain Harvard College...believe in its importance.”

Pilbeam says numerous similarities exist between that letter and one issued by Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby last month.

“Rosovsky’s letter could be sent out with the date changed,” Pilbeam says.

Justifying the review in the name of “interconnected worlds of scholarship and teaching,” Kirby’s letter states that “what is true when Dean Rosovsky wrote to the Faculty in 1974 is no less true today.”

But while the Core was the answer to the problems with undergraduate education three decades ago, many say it is not the clear solution for this generation.

“I think that the Core is a good design for Harvard University. It answers questions better than alternative ideas, but I wouldn’t be very happy if we were not asking these basic questions,” Dominguez says.

Tinkering Around

Little precedence exists for enacting as great a change as some are predicting.

Past reviews of the Core, which have been held every five years since 1974, have most often maintained the status quo.

Indeed after 30 years, many believe that the Core has remained fundamentally unchanged despite the increased concern of faculty and students about its effectiveness.

Fifteen years ago the Faculty abolished the practice of allowing a course to “double count” for historical studies and foreign cultures credit.

And the largest change came after the most recent review, held in 1997, in which a quantitative reasoning subsection was added.

Since then, reform has centered around “reducing the burden of the Core” not changing the philosophy behind it.

In 1999, Professor of German Peter J. Burgard advocated for departmental alternates in the humanities, to match those that already existed in the natural sciences. However, he says, this push was largely ineffectual.

“There was very minimal response. It has not been as successful as I had hoped,” he says.

Burgard says professors have been reluctant to offer their classes for Core credit, because of the increases in enrollment and greater scrutiny of content that Core status brings.

And in seeking to reduce the Core’s burden, a second major change came only last year with the number of total requirements reduced by one.

“This was an almost hidden, but substantial change” Burgard says.

Many say that it is this tinkering that has exposed the major flaws that mandate reform.

In his letter to the Faculty, Kirby says the “number of recent changes alone suggests the need for a holistic curricular review.”

And some say it is the support of Kirby and University President Lawrence H. Summers, that will bring substantial change.

“In the last review it would have been possible to get rid of [the Core], but the mandate suggested that was not the path that the Dean of the Faculty preferred.” Dominguez says.

While Kirby also says there should be a “core” to the Harvard educational experience, he has expressed that all options are on the table.

“I would be very sorry if we were simply in the tweaking business,” Dominguez says.

Resurrected Alternatives

While the mandate from the dean may be different, the Faculty seems as divided as it was in 1974.

According to Dominguez, the widely ranging faculty opinions resulted in the victory of the Core by only a two-to-one ratio. Today, the Faculty typically approves legislation unanimously.

And Dominguez says the opposition to the Core will never completely disappear.

“Most of the people who are critics of the Core are critics on principle,” he says.

These critics have begun to surface again.

One group of faculty has always rallied around the “Great Books” alternative used by Columbia and the University of Chicago. An amendment to the original Core legislation was proposed to require a course on the great works of Western Civilization, but the proposal was defeated.

And even now, those who consider themselves the strongest advocates for this option say that it is not in the offing.

“It doesn’t work for Harvard—it won’t happen and I am not interested in pushing it,” says Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies Jay M. Harris, who has taught in Columbia’s Great Books program.

Harris says he thinks students would be opposed to the program’s graduate student instruction. The necessity of removing faculty from their area of expertise he says is another flaw of the system.

“We have world class experts here in certain fields—why should they teach something else,” he says.

But while the majority agree that instruction should not be confined to a few authors, they are left wondering how exactly it should be divided.

“It is not clear that knowledge is divided into 11 [Core] subsections,” Gross says. “There is not much intellectual justification for that.”

Recognizing these arbitrary distinctions, numerous professors continue to support a system of distribution requirements mandating students take a certain number of classes within a few broad fields. Such a system is widely used by other colleges, including Yale.

“Some aspects of the Core are really just glorified distribution requirements,” Harris says.

Preserving What’s Good

While the Core seems destined for major reform or abolition, nobody denies the success and benefits of the 30 year program. And a top priority of many is to see these successes preserved.

One of the Core’s greatest successes has been involving more senior faculty members in undergraduate education.

Tatar, who says she often worries about the effectiveness of large lecture courses, says her experience teaching in the Core has been an invaluable one.

“There’s a big adrenaline rush and more is at stake when you are teaching a Core,” she says.

Other say they hope any new curriculum maintains the unique courses that the Core includes, many of which would not fit easily within one department.

“Core courses are examined with extraordinary care. They are the best designed courses in the University,” Burgard says.

And it will be up to the entire Faculty to decide the fate of the Core—but not quite yet.

The Core will be examined through a task force on general education that Gross and Kirby say they hope to establish by next semester.

The committee, which will be one of several established to review the entire curriculum, will be appointed by the dean and most likely consist of eight to 10 professors administrators and two students.

But while only a piece of the curricular review, most see the Core review as the most pressing concern.

“I think what needs to be examined most is the Core curriculum,” says Williams Professor of History and Political Science Roderick MacFarquhar. There have been enough suggestions that maybe the Core isn’t the right way to impart the basic solid education that Harvard College ought to give its students.”

And regardless of their opinions on the Core, they all say they realizes the magnitude of this review.

“This is about imparting knowledge to the next generation,” Gross said. “There is nothing more important.”

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.