Student Curricular Review Essays Stack Up Favorably to Profss

The recently released “Student Essays on the Purpose and Structure of a Harvard Education” more than holds its own against the faculty-authored anthology that was released last fall as part of the University’s once-in-a-generation Curricular Review.

Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. The professors’ essays offered ample food for thought, and many of the 13 student authors clearly relied upon the faculty arguments as starting points.

Furthermore, since students—rather than the teachers—ultimately receive the “Harvard Education,” there is an immediacy and intensity to the writing of these students, seeking to right the wrongs they have endured, that more than makes up for any ineloquence or lack of lofty abstraction.

Overall, editors Emily E. Riehl ’06 and Danny F. Yagan ’06 have put together an engaging array of essays that contributes significantly to existing campus debates. Hopefully, this volume has not come out too late to alter the Curricular Review’s rather disturbing direction.

And yet, the students are looking far beyond purely curricular matters. John Haddock ’07 calls for the improvement of advising structures through innovative programs such as departmental allocations for faculty-student dinners. Jeffrey D. Rakover ’06 expresses frustration at the University’s prioritization of faculty research over undergraduate education. He argues that tenure review committees must pay more attention to the quality of a candidate’s teaching. And Yagan introduces the sensible idea of “a tier of permanent lecturers, hired exclusively for their teaching abilities.”

Admittedly, some of the writers may be thinking too big. For instance, Joshua Patashnik ’07 calls for the University to lobby the federal government to ease immigration requirements for foreign students. But overall, these students have a commendably broad vision for the University’s future.

The range even embraces a look at the moral ethos the school should attempt to embody, which is beyond the more technical questions of the mainline Curricular Review emphasis. Robert L. Cioffi ’05 and Katherine DiSalvo ’05 both look beyond mere “veritas” and call for a Harvard education that seeks to inspire its students “to serve thy society and thy kind,” as Dexter Gate instructs us to do.

DiSalvo defends the importance of teaching to students to sympathize with the “needs and values of others”—an essential skill often dismissed in today’s jargon as “soft” or “non-cognitive.” And Cioffi suggests an alternate path to ethical development through his defense of the humanities. Literary study, he says, “will help us to live better, more considerate, and crucially, more moral lives.”

The authors also contribute to the ongoing debate over a “great books” curriculum, although on opposite sides. DiSalvo attacks Harvard’s Western-centrism, pointing out that the limited range of Moral Reasoning classes makes it appear that “the world has known 15 people capable of moral reasoning.” DiSalvo insists that Harvard’s courses must recognize the “varying, fascinating, and beautiful (and sometimes dangerous!)” systems of morality that occur beyond the Western world, especially in terms of religious beliefs.

Patashnik agrees that our increasingly globalized world demands that we must “look without and look within” the University’s intellectual heritage, and he calls for an expanded study-abroad program. But he defends the legitimacy of a mandatory Western-centric class that reflects Harvard’s intellectual and institutional foundations.

Most essayists seem to be in consensus with Paul B. Davis ’07 that the existing system makes it difficult to piece together a solid study of “the classics—however defined.” If the University does choose to go in the direction of distribution requirements, it will be essential, as Davis argues, to devise some program similar to Yale’s first-year Directed Studies program to make classic works easily accessible.

Perhaps the most compelling idea for a mandatory curriculum came from the youngest writer, Ryan A. Thorpe ’08, in his suggestion of a “formal introduction to scholarly thought.” Thorpe laments that Harvard excels in churning out technicians in particular concentrations (cough, economics!) who lack a “clear conception of the grounds of debate” upon which their entire field of study rests. He argues that students need to take a course that that seeks to get to the big questions about the purpose of scholarly pursuit. Ultimately, even if such a class focused largely on the Western canon (such as Plato, Smith, and Bacon—as Thorpe suggests), the debate around these classic texts would allow for a wide range of discourse.

Several essays critically question the legitimacy of any required course, no matter its quality. Ethan L. Gray ’05-‘06 argues that well-meaning attempts to create “well-rounded” students can prevent them from developing “a profoundly important value: passion.” “Imposing” a curriculum, as he argues, only serves to turn students off to learning. Thomas Wolf ’05 worries about the University’s desire to create students of a specific “mold” and argues instead that Harvard—through scaled down distribution and concentration requirements—must be “an agent of heterogeneity.”

I worry, though, that scaling back student requirements may lead in fact to greater homogeneity within students, because students will not be challenged by the University and instead succumb to the well-trodden easy routes to the diploma. Nearly all the writers in the compilation envision the ideal product of the Harvard education as self-directed “citizen-leaders,” as Wasson argues.

I believe Gray and Wolf make the error of assuming that only way to create self-directed graduates is to allow students to direct their own studies. As Christopher Catizone ’06 poignantly argues: “We are bombarded with information about practicing safe sex, finding late night counseling help, securing the best summer internship. But when it comes to learning, arguably the business of Harvard, we are handed a course catalog and encouraged to find our own way. But we are disappointed, for we cannot come to wisdom on our own.”

In order to encourage true pursuit of wisdom, the College must, as Yagan argues,

”find a creative way to mitigate pressures on us to take the least challenging course we can find.” Riehl argues that if the College deflates grades, “there will be less pressure for perfection across the board.” If we weren’t so obsessed with preserving our 3.5 GPAs, then students would be more willing to take a risk with a phobia-inducing professor such as Harvey C-minus Mansfield ’53.

Ultimately, students, surrounded with distractions both without and within the university walls, need greater direction from Harvard in order to find our own self-direction. It is reasonable for the University to “impose” more stringent requirements upon us because we ultimately have chosen to come here and accept the challenge. Left to our own, there are too many pressures that can lead us away from confronting our deepest assumptions and developing our minds to the fullest potential.