Harvard Past and Present, At Home and Abroad

A bit more than a year ago, I was asked by President Summers to serve as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. It has been, for me at least, an extraordinary year of learning.

I have learned that this is a historic institution that is not limited by its history. From the perspective of my own field—the history of modern China—Harvard has outlasted two dynasties and three republics. It has done so because it has shown the capacity for renewal and, when needed, reinvention. Since 1636 it had grown from a parochial institution of Massachusetts Bay—an economic and cultural backwater of a Europe that was itself underdeveloped compared with the Great Ming Empire—to be a leading university in this country by the end of the 19th century. The College, which originally enrolled nine students, would by the end of the 20th century become a University composed of nine separate faculties, plus one institute for advanced study. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences alone now has 650 professors in 31 academic departments; 40 undergraduate concentrations; eight museums; 30 research centers; and over 100 libraries. The curriculum of Harvard College is studied and emulated the world over, even in China.

“To inherit, one must be alive,” the historian John Dunn has written. Our collective inheritance is also our challenge to stay alive, to revitalize. Take the case of Harvard College, our oldest and still central institution. By many measures it seems beyond improvement: it has more applicants, and thus greater selectivity, than ever before; its students excel in class (even if not all of them earn A’s); and they succeed in all kinds of postgraduate competitions, not to mention careers. Yet if we take the College for granted, we will quickly find it diminished, a secondary institution in the University that has grown around it. Such has been the fate of liberal arts colleges in most research universities. Such should not be the case with Harvard College, the mission of which—as the president will pronounce today—is to graduate educated women and men.

That is why we have focused so intently, indeed so single-mindedly, on the College, and its future curriculum, this year. What, after all, will it mean to be an educated woman or man in the first quarter of the 21st century? What are the enduring goals of a liberal education, and how are they best articulated by a faculty of arts and sciences? What should be the common foundation of a Harvard College education? What should a Harvard graduate know in depth: That is, how “concentrated” should a Harvard College education be? How do our current structures—departments, concentrations and calendars—serve our educational mission? How can we prepare our students to be citizens, not just of this or other countries, but of the world? These are the simplest, and therefore most difficult questions that we have before us.

Being an academic institution, we began to address these questions the old fashioned way: by studying. Over the course of the year, President Summers, Dean Gross and I have received hundreds of letters and e-mails from faculty, students and alumni, with a combination of advice and critique designed to help our curricular review. We have read them with care, and they have informed our creation of four committees of faculty and students—think of them as study groups—on general education, concentrations, teaching and the overall educational experience in Harvard College. From the responses we have received, one area of consensus (among others) is that we should “internationalize” a Harvard education.

The world may study Harvard, but how does Harvard study the world? The early answer would seem to be: rather well, here in Cambridge (we do teach 54 languages!), but rather fitfully, outside of zip code 02138. As I told our first-year students when they arrived in September: “You are here to learn, but your learning need not take place only here.” To that end, we issued new guidelines for study abroad, planned a series of new programs on five continents and established an Office of International Programs to promote, develop and manage all this. One happy result is that this spring 46 percent more students are studying abroad compared to this time last year.

Why did we need to do this? Because the world our students will live and work in goes beyond Massachusetts Bay and beyond the United States of America. Ours is a world of interacting, changing but still different societies and cultures. Wherever our students are from, the world they will face will be one mostly made up of foreigners—of people with different pasts and different presents, who speak, write and think in different languages, at least some of which have to be learned in order to understand the people who speak them.

Beyond this, we recognized our role as an institution that is at once American and (in its students and faculty) international. We live in a moment of unprecedented American power and influence in the world. Harvard is perhaps the most famous American university outside of this country. With all this renown comes responsibility: to admit frankly how little we know, to seek knowledge of others and of ourselves—indeed to see ourselves as others see us—and to avoid pride, even when others accord us pride of place.

In the curriculum as in all areas, ours is the challenge of continuous renewal. At no time is that more apparent than today, when our graduates depart, our alumni return, all part of a ritual known as “Commencement.” As we commence an agenda of renewal—of Harvard College, of our physical campus and indeed of the Faculty itself—let us bear in mind our historic capacity for change, and let us remain humble. Let us take to heart the lessons of an “international” scholar, who lived long ago and far away. As Xunzi said, in the third century B.C.E.: “Those who have good reason to find fault with me are my teachers; those who have good reason to find me praiseworthy are my friends; and those who flatter me do me injury.”

William C. Kirby is Geisinger professor of history and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.