FAS Releases ‘Real-World’ Core Reforms

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences released its final report on general education yesterday, setting the stage for a vote to replace the Core with a curriculum that emphasizes the real-world context of a liberal arts education.

In the biggest change from the report’s most recent version, the Task Force on General Education’s proposal now requires two courses that address the humanities. A new category on “Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding” would teach students how to interpret works of art and literature, while a category called “Culture and Belief” would place those works in a social context.

The final proposal for the College’s first overhaul of general education in a generation closely resembles the committee’s preliminary October proposal, calling for a set of required categories grounded in subject matter like “Societies of the World” rather than academic disciplines.

A previously proposed interdisciplinary category on “what it means to be a human being,” which drew fire from professors for being unmanageably broad, was dropped from the report.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles wrote in an e-mail that the full Faculty would probably discuss the recommendations at its regular meeting on Tuesday, with the first vote on the report coming as early as next month.

The report cautioned against rushing to implement the proposed program.

“This should not be a matter of moving existing courses into new curricular pigeonholes,” the report reads.

If general education legislation is passed this spring, the transition period toward the new system could potentially begin next academic year.

All current undergraduates would be able to graduate under the Core program, according to Professor of Philosophy Alison Simmons, who co-chaired the task force.

COURSE MENU

Like a revision released in December, yesterday’s proposal did not include an explicit requirement in the study of religion.

“We’re getting Reason and Faith in there in various categories,” Simmons said. “We still think it’s important for students to study.”

The final report keeps a requirement that students take one course in U.S. history and another covering world societies. Requirements in physical sciences and life sciences also remain, and a renamed “Empirical Reasoning” category will include courses on evaluating data.

The eighth category, “Ethical Reasoning,” will cover philosophy, political theory, religion, and related issues.

“We wanted Ethical Reasoning to be a more inclusive, or a more expansive, category than the current ‘Moral Reasoning’ requirement,” Simmons said, referring to a category in the present Core Curriculum.

The report also advocates an initiative in “activity-based learning” that would connect academic work with students’ activities outside of class.

Many students “regard their extracurricular life as separate from their academic experience,” the report reads. “We believe that we should find ways of bringing those aspects of undergraduate life closer together.”

The 27-page report included only three pages addressing how its recommendations would be implemented, saying the details “are beyond the purview of our Task Force.” But the report called for “a major commitment of resources to the development of a substantial menu of courses for general education.”

THE LONG ROAD

Yesterday’s report marks a new stage in the four-year-long effort to articulate a new plan for general education.

Part of a curricular review launched in 2002, general education became an early battleground in the conflict between Faculty of Arts and Sciences professors and then-University President Lawrence H. Summers.

Professors criticized Summers, initially a member of the committee examining general education, for micromanaging the review.

Faculty discussion of curricular review recommendations was delayed in both the spring of 2005 and the spring of 2006 as Faculty meetings became the stage for professors to attack Summers’ leadership.

Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby—who had spearheaded the curricular review—resigned under pressure from Summers last winter, setting off a conflict that ultimately resulted in Summers’ own resignation.

In the midst of the leadership crisis, the report on general education was sent back to the drawing board multiple times. Professors criticized the reports, including one that recommended that students fulfill distribution requirements in three categories—Arts and Humanities, Science and Technology and the Study of Societies—for being too vague and lacking a guiding philosophical thread.

A report drafted last summer provided the basis for yesterday’s final recommendations.

—Madeline M. G. Haas, Alexandra Hiatt, and Carolyn F. Gaebler contributed reporting to this article.
— Staff writer Lois E. Beckett can be reached at lbeckett@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Johannah S. Cornblatt can be reached at jcornbl@fas.harvard.edu.