Progress on the Curriculum

For the past two years, Harvard’s once-in-a-generation curricular review held the promise of a complete and visionary overhaul of undergraduate education at the University. 59 years ago, the same process introduced the very notion of a core curriculum to American academia. And the last time University dons gathered to rethink Harvard’s pedagogical orientation—in the 1970s—the College adopted its commitment to teaching “approaches to knowledge” in the Core and beyond. But the recently released Harvard College Curricular Review (HCCR) report, which contains initial recommendations, is nothing spectacular. Instead of the kinds of sweeping reforms of years past, the College got a laundry list of generally unoriginal ideas poached from other schools mixed with an unconvincing dose of rhetoric about “internationalization.”

That this curricular review is not as dramatic as the last two, though, should not indict the whole process. Many, though not all, of the HCCR report’s recommendations are solid, if familiar, and deserve support for what they are—unexciting but generally necessary reforms. And there is much potential for improvement during the next year of discussion and debate.

The most important change recommended in the HCCR report was also the most obvious—eliminating the tiresome Core Curriculum. Instead of the current “approaches to knowledge” plan—which has acquainted undergraduates more with rote memorization than critical thinking—the report recommends moving to less restrictive distribution requirements, allowing more departmental courses to count for general education credit. New classes known as Harvard College Courses would also “expand the horizons of both faculty and students” and “introduce bodies of knowledge, concepts and major texts.” For these classes to be effective, they must emphasize the world’s most essential texts and ideas—though we oppose a strict “Great Books” curriculum—and highlight the best Harvard has to offer, both with professors and teaching fellows (TFs). In any case, the HCCR needs to be clearer in the coming month about what it expects this new class of courses to look like.

Though we are particularly happy that the proposed Core reform enhances student choice, we are skeptical about some of the other recommendations in the HCCR report that claim to do the same thing. The drastic reform of the concentration system that the report suggests, for example, would undermine the quality of a Harvard degree. The possible cap of 12 required courses per concentration—something that would affect all but 18 of the 40 concentrations—would limit the depth of instruction at the College. Also, in all but 11 of the concentrations, Honors and Basic requirements would be condensed into one set, making the only thing that distinguishes an Honors degree from a non-Honors degree a thesis or a “capstone project.” The quaint notion of the “capstone project”—a vaguely-defined senior-year endeavor that does not have to involve original and intensive academic research or writing—deserves scorn, too, for providing seniors with what would likely become an easy way out of doing real work. Finally, we question the value of the report’s recommendation to delay concentration declarations, which would eliminate often essential first-semester sophomore tutorials.

An important focus of the HCCR report that generally hits the mark, though, is its emphasis on science education. A greater degree of scientific literacy is crucial for Harvard graduates in today’s age of technology, and we fully support expanded science education for all students at the College. But we also believe that classes meant to make undergraduates scientifically savvy must consist of substantive scientific knowledge as well as instruction on scientific methods (the report was overly vague on how such classes would be structured). Similarly, the changes in the expository writing program are worthy of support—especially the addition of a unit on cultivating oratorical skills. However, expos should focus on the basics of academic writing, not style, and the College must do more to monitor the quality of preceptors.

Many of the proposals to improve teaching are also good, including the suggestions to expand junior seminars, reduce section size from 18 to 15 and require professors to head concentration tutorials. The report’s perennial focus on increased student and faculty contact through smaller classes and an expanded Faculty, meanwhile, will hopefully give students the attention they deserve. Still, the recommendations to encourage better teaching fellows—which range from new awards for top-notch TFs to better TF training—will do little to change teaching quality because they do not insist on greater coursehead monitoring and interaction with course TFs.

But the movement toward smaller classes and more faculty-student interaction is a centrally important goal, and it is also crucial for fixing the College’s failing advising system. The report rightly recommends making the Harvard undergraduate experience more personalized with more concentration advisors on hand and a greater number of student-faculty dinners. Similarly, the proposed central advising office would help keep students from falling through the cracks, though it must be created in a way that avoids the pathetic apathy that has plagued past attempts at such an institution such as the the useless economics department advising center.

In another effort to help advising as well as increase interclass interaction, the HCCR report also suggests putting Harvard on a Yale-style housing system. But this is not the time to start following Yale’s example—assigning first-years to houses upon arrival will deter socialization with students in other first-year dorms. Further, while blocking isn’t always smooth, students deserve the chance to decide who their living companions are going to be for the next three years. A better solution to the travails of Yard life is to have upperclass students replace proctors, keeping only one non-undergraduate per dorm around to keep an eye on the yardlings. This would allow older students who understand the ways of the College to do the advising, rather than graduate students who don’t have enough experience navigating the College’s bureaucratic tangle.

From advising to sections to the Core, this generation’s curricular review may well fix a cornucopia of long-standing problems at the College. And as long as the next stages of the process are open to the scrutiny of the undergraduate community, this unexciting start might still inspire the participation of students at the College, who for the most part haven’t caught on to University Hall’s curricular review craze. Yet there remain a number of ways this whole undertaking could fail students—reforms that benefit administrators more than undergraduates might be pushed through or the report’s good suggestions could get even more watered down. Now that the initial recommendations are on paper, the College’s curricular reviewers must make sure the rest of the process serves students at the College before anyone else.