Professors Predict the Future

The majority of Harvard students may not live on campus—or even come from America—by the time the University turns 400 according to a vision proposed at a panel organized by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in Tsai Auditorium Wednesday afternoon.

“I want to begin by welcoming the Harvard class of [20]40,” began Maya Jasanoff, a history professor and the moderator of the event.

She continued in the voice of someone telling these future students what Harvard looked like in their “past”—today’s present. “Back then Widener Library was full of books. People checked them out; these were heavy chunky things,” she said. “Classes used to be held mostly between 10 and 4, the time you now spend on internships and labs and start-ups.”

Jasanoff’s thought-experiment set the tone for Wednesday’s discussion—the second and final in a FAS series entitled “The Future of the Present: Faculty Imagine the FAS at 400.”

She and four colleagues talked about the challenges and opportunities facing Harvard as it navigates an educational landscape increasingly transformed by digital forces—from virtual learning through online classrooms and Skype seminars to instant information access via Twitter and Wikipedia.

In defense of the physical university campus, government professor Claudine Gay argued that conducting education through virtual mediums alone will rob students of key interactions that can only occur spontaneously and in-person.

“Discovery is not possible without dialogue,” she said, citing chance five-minute conversations after class and encounters in the Yard. “This shared physical space...and how these spaces are configured—all of that can foster the kind of community that really creates opportunities for dialogue.”

Gay said she worried that with information so much more readily available, students were becoming less resourceful.

“My nostalgia for the present is going to mark me as something of a Luddite,” she said. “The Widener experience, literally browsing, and kind of seeing where that takes you—it’s part of a wholly different approach to data collection.”

Gay was not alone in her concerns about a newly digital future.

Robert J. Wood, an electrical engineering professor on the panel, cautioned against “a potential de-emphasis on hands-on learning” due to digital tools.

The panel’s attendees said they appreciated the perspectives offered by the professors.

“I’ve been a little concerned and worried about what the next few years—with all of these technological enhancements and advances that we have—might be taking away from that experience for students and for educators,” said Tara Benedict, a senior program director in the Office of the University Marshal.

—Staff writer Radhika Jain can be reached at radhikajain@college.harvard.edu.