Harvard Should Teach Speech

Harvard students reportedly hesitate to voice their opinions — perhaps that’s because they haven’t had any practice.

Harvard has taken many steps to combat the lack of speech on campus. For example, incoming first-year students are required to complete the Constructive Dialogue Institute’s 2.5-hour-long online Perspectives module prior to arriving on campus in late August. The module is supposed to teach students how to better engage with differing view points. The College has also instated non-attribution policies in classrooms to allow students to speak more freely without the threat of self-censorship.

It would be nice if fixing the College’s free speech problem were as simple as requiring an easy-to-ignore online module, but speech takes practice — and not the kind of practice you get by anonymously posting on Sidechat. There’s a reason why the high school debate kid is the one speaking up in lecture or section: the vulnerability that comes with sharing thoughts in front of peers isn’t new to them.

Harvard should require a public speaking course for undergraduates. By doing so, the College would help students develop the skills for effective oral communication and allow students to practice engaging with peers on controversial issues.

The College already offers a public speaking course, Expository Writing 40: “Public Speaking Practicum,” which should be expanded as a requirement for all students. Ideally, it would be incorporated into the expository writing requirement so as to not burden student schedules with an extra requirement.

The public speaking requirement would focus on rhetoric, communication, and argument. Students should be graded on whether they engage the audience through eye contact, speak clearly, and structure their argument logically. They would come out of the course able to articulate their ideas coherently and engage with those of their peers — without incessantly qualifying their points or using “piggyback” as a verb.

The course should also be designed to help students engage with opposing viewpoints. Assignments could, for instance, ask students to speak on behalf of an idea with which they disagree or to have a debate with another student about a controversial topic.

This kind of clear analytical thought is included in the goal of Expos 20: “the Expos philosophy,” the website states, “is that writing and thinking are inseparably related and that good thinking requires good writing.”

I’d like to amend the Expos philosophy to include good speaking.

Generative AI has made clear — albeit boring — analytical writing easily producible, thereby eliminating its scarcity. With the help of AI, it’s not at all difficult to produce a five page essay on a research topic of your choice. Good oratory, on the other hand, isn’t AI-replaceable — it’s valuable personal and professional skill.

Harvard’s curriculum used to reflect this sentiment. Rhetoric was once an essential part of the Harvard experience. In the early 19th century, for instance, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory John Q. Adams Class of 1789 gave a series of lectures on the topic to Harvard’s juniors and seniors. Adams presented oratory as an active skill requiring careful practice rather than a passive art form, an idea that today’s Harvard would do well to adopt.

Harvard claims its goal is “to educate citizens and citizen-leaders for our society.” Citizen-leaders ought to have the ability to speak on behalf of their ideas and disagree with posture and clarity. Factor in the added benefit of futureproofing student skillsets and the conclusion is clear: Harvard must teach students how to speak.

Powerful oratory hasn’t gone out of style – it’s only teaching it that has.

Amelia F. Barnum ’28, a Crimson Editorial Editor, lives in Winthrop House.