The Mission of Gen Ed

Prefrosh weekend came and went and today, the Class of 2012 will commit to attend Harvard. But they will have done so with relative uncertainty as to what sort of education they will receive. When they arrive in the fall, they will be given the choice between the highly criticized and poorly administered Core curriculum, or being the first class to enroll in General Education (Gen Ed).

What seems like an easy choice, however, will not be so obvious. A coherent vision for Gen Ed, with its notion of engaged intellectualism and global citizenship, of which we saw glimpses in the preliminary report from the Task Force on General Education, has quickly ceded to a nebulous, uninspiring hodgepodge of academic disciplines that demonstrates little in the way of a singular, motivating, guiding philosophy. The consequences of this decline are profoundly troublesome, as a slow start to Gen Ed threatens to banish incoming classes of Harvard undergraduates to an incoherent education. To hasten the development of Gen Ed, incoming Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds must refocus Gen Ed around a meaningful educational philosophy.
 
In their preliminary report a year and a half ago, the chairs of the Task Force on General Education, English professor Louis Menand and philosophy professor Allison Simmons, presented a brand of liberal education that sought to prepare students to engage with an increasingly globalized and multicultural world. It was more than just a revamped Core curriculum; Gen Ed was meant to be a forerunner in 21st century American higher education.

Yet, the final report—much watered down from its initial drafts—enjoyed a lukewarm reception. It lacked the strong commitment to and enthusiasm for a coherent philosophy, and in the interim year and a half, whatever excitement there once was has dissipated. The Faculty has consistently had trouble amassing the energy to gain any traction, and as a consequence, few professors have undertaken the task of creating courses for this nascent program. Only 16 Gen Ed courses will be offered next fall, and only six more have been approved for the 2009-2010 academic year. In fact, a mere 40 proposals have even been submitted, many of which are nothing more than adapted Core courses.

How can incoming freshmen, who know relatively little about these changes, be expected to make informed decisions about competing curricula? Freshmen advisors complain of having been left in the dark, too, in spite of the fact that they will be expected to advise new students a mere four months from now. All of this, and administrators are hardly apologetic.

Nowhere is the lack of enthusiasm during this transition period more evident than in the all-but-abandoned administration of the Core curriculum. Although administrators followed through on their pledge to relax criteria and streamline the process by which departmental courses are eligible for Core credit, efforts to encourage faculty to apply for Core credit are half-hearted at best. In spite of the fact that courses no longer need give final exams, can now be offered by visiting professors, and that even seminars are eligible, the Core Standing Committee received no more proposals this year than last. In each of the last two years, between 100 and 120 courses have been approved for Core credit, according to Susan W. Lewis, the director of the Core program.

Considering the College is in the throes of a curricular transition, however, these efforts to get professors to proactively apply for Core credit have proved inadequate. Students should be given more options, rather than feel limited to the narrowing constraints of a failing program. It is especially disconcerting that only nine Core courses have been approved to double-count for Gen Ed credit for the next academic year. This is hardly accommodating. No wonder Gen Ed Committee Chair Jay M. Harris is insistent that the Class of 2012 not get too caught up next year trying to fulfill their requirements.

For the faculty of what is purportedly among the world’s premier undergraduate institutions to be so sluggish in implementing a new curriculum is appalling. With Gen Ed only a few months away from its launch, this program needs to rediscover the impetus and the mission that it sought to embody in its preliminary report. It is incumbent upon Dean Hammonds, who take office on June 1, to restore the sense that Gen Ed is guided by a unified vision of global leadership and engagement. If the program hopes to be successful, Hammonds must use her influence, wielding the power of the pulpit, to infuse Gen Ed with a coherent set of philosophical underpinnings and a truly substantive notion of education.

SERIES
This editorial is the second in a two-part series that addresses the transition from Harvard’s Core Curriculum to General Education.