Change You Can Acknowledge

“When you enter your Expos classroom this fall or spring, you will be participating in one of Harvard's oldest traditions; a one-term course in expository writing has been the one academic experience required of every Harvard student since the writing program was founded in 1872.”—Harvard College Writing Program Website

Bullsh*t. Well, at least for the few dozen first years who applied and were accepted to Humanities 10a and 10b this academic year.

Though this information cannot be found on the Harvard College Writing Program Website, this year, for the first time, Harvard College’s “cornerstone course offering” can be replaced by another course: a full year of Humanities 10.

This article would be easier to write, my outrage more obviously rational, if Hum 10 were going to be conducted just as it was last year, with little regard for the Expos curriculum. But, in an email to The Crimson, the course’s Head TF, Lauren Kopjitic, said the Hum 10 staff has been “working closely with the staff of the Writing Program to create an Expos curriculum that is fully integrated with the Humanities 10 course goals and objectives.” Kopjitic also detailed that there will be an additional thirty minutes of weekly seminar to make time for more writing instruction; students will have to write research papers; and there will be a revision process for each paper.

Nevertheless, I am not satisfied. It’s not that the 75 students in Hum 10 won’t learn to write. They will. It’s that Harvard likes to tout its academic principles and traditions, without openly acknowledging the departures it makes from them; it chooses to make exceptions (maybe reasonable, even desirable ones), but does so discreetly.

My reaction to the change in Expos policy would have been different if the modification had been widely publicized: Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Harvard College remains innovative, changing its age-old writing requirement!

But that’s not how this change was rolled out. And the Hum 10 exception is not the only case of Harvard publicizing one program or principle while quietly enacting policy that contradicts it.

The Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Handbook clearly states that the “faculty believes that full participation in a classroom setting is essential. Therefore, a student may not enroll in courses that meet at the same time or overlapping times.” It seems the faculty forgot to detail how they don’t believe that full participation in the classroom setting is quite as essential when it comes to introductory computer science.

A student does not need a single additional signature on their study card in order to simultaneously enroll in Computer Science 50 and another course.

And there is little explanation in Harvard's recorded history as to why this is.

The Adams House Dean, Adam Muri-Rosenthal, provided the best explanation a Crimson article published about the CS50 exception could cite. He noted in an email to Adams House that the introductory computer science course’s “innovative pedagogies” do not limit it to a particular time slot.

Again, CS50’s immunity from the simultaneous enrollment policy is not the issue. Harvard not owning its exceptions, not publicizing or articulating their reasons for them, is.

To be a reputable educational institution, Harvard needs to have academic principles at its core. Harvard knows this and seeks to maintain its identity through certain distinctive programs. It flaunts General Education, a program unique to Harvard, in its admissions materials as a program that “aims to make ... students more informed citizens.” It recommits itself to its policy regarding time spent in the classroom because simultaneous enrollment is, in the words of Dean of Undergraduate Education, Jay Harris, "not what a residential college should be offering and [it] is not what a Harvard education should be." It does not create great fanfare when its singular unifying, unique course, Expos 20, becomes one of two options.

Even if Harvard is officially committed to its philosophies, however, the exceptions prove that there is internal debate. And that is good debate. But Harvard needs to make this debate public, and, more importantly, declare: are the principles misguided, or are the exceptions? Or are the principles true in most cases, but in need of the few exceptions, which simply have not been properly acknowledged and explained?

If courses other than Expos can teach writing effectively, why not create more of them so that more than a few dozen students can experience the new teaching format? If CS50’s innovative pedagogies allow for it to be an effective course, whether a student is physically present or not, why not introduce that pedagogy to other classes?

Harvard’s identity will not be marred because Hum 10 can count for Expos credit, but that identity can be shaped if we talk about why the class counts and what will count in the future. Its identity can evolve if we acknowledge the exceptions currently made and consider the merit of its rules. Harvard can grow if we don’t dwell on what makes it unique or what is oldest, but what will make it better.

Leni M.G. Hirsh '18 is a Crimson editorial writer living in Pforzheimer House.