Rotten to the Core

I n their draft proposal, released in October 2006, Harvard’s Task Force on General Education offered “a new rationale for general education at Harvard, one that is distinct from the rationale for the present Core curriculum.” The Committee’s report did not call the present Core—required of all Harvard undergraduates since 1978—a bureaucratic monstrosity compromised ever since its inception. Instead, reformers insisted that the Core is a victim of changing times. The draft asserted that today’s Harvard students “will need to make their way in an environment complex in new and incompletely understood ways,” and “will lead lives that affect the lives of others,” as if such were not the case in 1978, when students apparently graduated into an uncomplicated and secluded world.

The Standing Committee on General Education has chosen the class of 2013 to be the first to graduate entirely under the new program. Given that Gen Ed’s goal is a “curriculum that is responsive to the conditions of the twenty-first century,” students graduating before 2013 are left to wonder: are we receiving—gasp—a twentieth century education? And more importantly, is the search for a new “rationale” behind educational breadth a subtle admission of just how badly practical flaws undermine the current system? In short, yes. The Core Curriculum so poorly represents the ideal of general education that the community has no need for it. Unconstrained by the etiquette of a faculty post, we can say that the Core is not simply “outdated” in its justification, but is implemented in such a way as to render it worthless. In other words, the Core should end now, and general course requirements should remain suspended until Gen Ed is ready to be implemented.

The structural design of the Core is its most significant flaw. The act of requiring a set number of large, mediocre lecture courses degrades—rather than improves—a Harvard education. Options under the Core program are often over-sized (Historical Study A-87, “Madness and Medicine” with an enrollment of 339), obscure (Literature and Arts A-63: Women Writers in Imperial China), or all too few (a total of three Historical Study B courses this semester). Students who will graduate before seeing Gen Ed implemented should not be constrained by this confessedly unsuccessful program. We should not be required to sacrifice quality in our own education, simply to buttress the ridiculous illusion that the Core’s primary fault is only that its “rationale” needs updating. As often with deeply flawed structures, the present period of re-evaluation and rebuilding calls for an immediate moratorium on the program itself.

Unfortunately, however, Gen Ed is a program not yet ready for prime time. If we wished it to be merely a rearrangement of the same courses into new boxes, the proposed system could start today. But this would not be true reform. Gen Ed’s success will not derive from a creative reassignment of today’s Core courses. Rather, if it achieves its aims, the program’s legacy will be a curriculum that integrates innovative teaching methods, and focuses on the twenty-first century world. Accomplishing such lofty goals requires a period during which such Gen Ed plan generalities can assume a concrete meaning: a period to develop the necessary curricula and to prepare the faculty to make such aspirations a reality. An overly hasty implementation process would undermine the new system before it has time to establish itself. Gen Ed requires a period of development and nurturing—prior to implementation—precisely in order to avoid the very same flaws in execution that plague the Core.

Providing Gen Ed such a period for development, while still granting the Core the immediate funeral it deserves, calls for a temporary suspension of general course requirements. While this suspension might seem to strike a blow against broad education, it is worth remembering that the current program actually stifles many Harvard students’ personal quests for breadth. The faculty must agree it is bizarre that the current system, supposedly meant to acquaint students with various disciplines, ignores courses such as Psychology 1, “Introduction to Psychology” and History 20a, “Western Intellectual History.” Expanding the list of accepted departmental courses is, in fact, another goal to be phased in as part of the new Gen Ed program. Without quick action, though, room for breadth in course selection is just another benefit that current students will not be around to see.

A period with neither Core nor Gen Ed would not mean a window in which, for a few fleeting years, Harvard would “become Brown.” Concentration requirements would remain just as rigorous and, if need be, the faculty could impose a loose distribution requirement. Such a distribution requirement was, in fact, the original result of Harvard’s search to replace the Core. A brief interlude under such a requirement would not disadvantage students who entered under the current system, and would also allow the College to be sure it made the right choice in discarding that alternative.

The College has already rejected the Core, but current students seem to be falling through the cracks. In response, the faculty ought to free students from both decayed and yet-to-be-written requirements. Harvard must ensure the new system’s quality and feasibility for the classes to come, but it should do so without ignoring the needs of current students. The university is bidding a long goodbye to a faulty structure, and although the goodbye is warranted, I, for one, wish it were briefer.

Max J. Kornblith ’10, a Crimson editorial editor, is a social studies concentrator in Cabot House.