Gov 97b, Good Riddance

Yesterday marked the spring’s final edition of Government 97b, the second half of the government department’s sophomore tutorial. Few were paying attention during the unceremonious finale, and even fewer will miss the course that has left captive students begging for mercy—or a bit if intellectual stimulation—all semester long. Attendance often dropped to laughable levels as some TFs resigned themselves to making wink-wink agreements, telling their students that they did not need to attend the lectures, while others encouraged “multitasking.” With this semester finally in the rearview mirror, it’s time for the government department to go back to the drawing board and think about how it is asking its first year concentrators to spend their time.

Gov 97b is designed to supplement Gov 97a, the first semester sophomore tutorial that focuses on American government and political theory. But while Gov 97a has a coherent structure and is organized around the unified theme of democracy in America, Gov 97b meanders aimlessly, often only paying lip service to its promise of introducing students to international relations and comparative government. It has generally been up to the TFs to piece the fragments of the course together—with some stepping up to the plate and others simply allowing their sections to fall into disrepair. This year’s misery was compounded by the decision to institute mandatory weekly lectures in a course that previously only required all its students to convene twice per semester. The lectures were either disorganized or repetitive, appearing to occur solely for the purpose of existence and not for pedagogical reasons.

The Faculty’s recent vote to shift the concentration deadline back a semester is an opportune time for the government department to revisit the logic behind its sophomore tutorial. It is our hope that over the summer, the government department will contemplate what it is that every government concentrator at Harvard ought to know and revise the sophomore tutorial accordingly.

There may be some in the department who would prefer to scrap the sophomore tutorial altogether and substitute some sort of additional distributional requirement in its place—a move akin to the History department’s decision to knock off the History 10a requirement. Certainly such a move would please faculty who view teaching Gob 97b—or nearly any course that does not closely align with a particular research interest—as a “service” task. We urge the government department not to submit to this temptation.

If the disheartening truth is that faculty cannot be motivated to devote their energies to crucial survey materials, the government department should turn to a competent, engaging lecturer who can cultivate a coherent program over time. While there will likely be disagreement over what should be taught in such a course, tough decisions must be made in the interest of undergraduates. Sophomore tutorials offer a valuable opportunity to impart a uniform body of knowledge to all concentrators, and, in doing so, build cohesion within the class and the department; moreover, concentrators benefit tremendously from a common foundation that can serve as a basis for discussion in future departmental courses. Other concentrations like Social Studies, History and Science, and History and Literature offer this foundation. Government should too.

The government department’s spring tutorial has perennially been unpopular with students and professors alike; it has been plagued by low student satisfaction, and the department has had difficulty attracting professors to teach it. Since it was first instituted five years ago, Gov 97b has struggled to find an identity. We hope it finds one before its next showing.