Harvard in biggest curriculum overhaul in 30 years

Parent Cafe
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<p><a href=“http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-02-07T180054Z_01_N06274964_RTRUKOC_0_US-HARVARD.xml&src=rss&rpc=22[/url]”>http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-02-07T180054Z_01_N06274964_RTRUKOC_0_US-HARVARD.xml&src=rss&rpc=22&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>BOSTON (Reuters) - Harvard University announced on Wednesday its biggest curriculum overhaul in three decades, putting new emphasis on sensitive religious and cultural issues, the sciences and overcoming U.S. “parochialism.”</p>

<p>The curriculum at the oldest U.S. university has been criticized as focusing too narrowly on academic topics instead of real-life issues, or for being antagonistic to organized religion. Efforts to revise it have been in the works for three years.</p>

<p>One of the eight new required subject areas – “societies of the world” – aims to help students overcome U.S. “parochialism” by “acquainting them with the values, customs and institutions that differ from their own,” said a 34-page Harvard report on the changes.</p>

<p>An earlier proposal would have made Harvard unique among its elite Ivy League peers by requiring undergraduates to study religion as a distinct subject, but that was dropped in December.</p>

<p>The changes to the general-education requirements, imposed on students outside their major, still address religious beliefs and practices. Study of those issues, however, would be folded into a broader subject of “culture and belief.”</p>

<p>The “culture and belief” requirement will “introduce students to ideas, art and religion in the context of the social, political, religious, economic and cross-cultural conditions” that shape them, Harvard said.</p>

<p>Founded to train Puritan ministers 370 years ago, Harvard has been criticized by some conservatives in recent decades as a liberal bastion unfriendly toward religion.</p>

<p>A task force of six professors and two students which drafted the new curriculum said religion should be addressed, but only as one of several cultural influences.</p>

<p>“Harvard is a secular institution but religion is an important part of our students’ lives,” it said. It noted that 94 percent of Harvard’s incoming students report that they discuss religion “frequently” or “occasionally,” and 71 percent say that they attend religious services.</p>

<p>Under the changes, science wins greater prominence, including the study of the ethical issues surrounding embryonic stem cell research, which has raised hope for cures for ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease while being opposed by Christian groups and others as an immoral destruction of human life.</p>

<p>Plagiarism – which rocked Harvard last year when a novel by star undergraduate writer Kaavya Viswanathan was found to have copied passages from another work – is also addressed.</p>

<p>The curriculum shake-up is the first major overhaul since Harvard formulated its current “core” course requirements in the 1970s. It had been advanced by former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who resigned his post in June after a faculty revolt over his leadership style.</p>

<p>Other new requirements include the study of empirical reasoning, ethical reasoning, the science of living systems, the science of the physical universe, and “aesthetic and interpretive understanding”.</p>

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<p>Too bad they didn’t include a goal of having faculty committees write in comprehensible English.</p>

<p>On the other hand, it’s good to see that implementation of the new general education curriculum won’t interfere with the use of TAs at the world’s wealthiest university:</p>

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<p>Looks like they are emulating Pomona, though without the language requirement. At least they (finally) recognize that it might be a good thing for students to be able to discuss the subject matter with the faculty member teaching it and other students in the class - “to the extent practicable” - of course.</p>

<p>A big DUH! (no wonder they rank 27th out of 31 COFHE schools in student evaluation of academic quality.)</p>

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<p>They still have a language requirement. The curricular committee did not “propose as pedagogical desiderata” addressing that.</p>

<p>BTW, the proposal is to require one-half course each from the eight categories. These general education courses will be listed in the front of the course catalog, outside of the department designations. Of course, having a limited number of mandatory courses for 6500 undergrads tends to run counter to the “pedagogical desiderata” of small, interactive instruction, limiting the practicable extent of such instruction, as it were.</p>

<p>I can’t wait to read Tim Burke’s blog on this one. He’s written quite a bit that colleges should just scrap their requirements because intelligent engaged students in any halfway decent liberal arts curriculum couldn’t avoid these issues unless they made an extreme effort to do so.</p>

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<p>Frankly, it struck me as rather “high schoolish” as well, but that might be totally appropriate for a very large number of students at prestige colleges these days.</p>

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<p>BTW, here’s the report:
<a href=“http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~secfas/General_Education_Final_Report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~secfas/General_Education_Final_Report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The eight half-course requirements are:</p>

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<p>BTW, in Harvard-speak, a “half course” means a full one semester course. A “full course” means two semester-long courses.</p>

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<p>Guys, guys. Take a deep breath! There’s not one way to provide a deep, thoughtful education. </p>

<p>I had one kid go to a “take what you want, here are some ‘guidelines’, but, whatever, it’s up to you” kind of school.</p>

<p>I have another one in a stringent, defined, sweeping Core, probably the poster child for that, kind of school.</p>

<p>Both got/are getting incredibly rich, deep, meaningful educations. There’s not one way (i.e. whatever Swat/ Smith is doing.)</p>

<p>Why all the hatin’?</p>

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<p>I LIKE the changes. no hatin here</p>

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<p>Oh, sorry, CGM. That wasn’t directed at you, but to the “my kid’s school is the only type of school worth going to; everything else is the lowest circle of Hades” folks.</p>

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<p>No hating, just think it’s much ado about very little.</p>

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<p>Who said anything about “my kid’s school”? Both Mini and I were complaining about mandatory requirements. My kid’s school has them; I think Mini’s kid’s school does, too. While they may not use the phrase “pedagogical desiderata”, they probably slip in a “heteronormative” or two. Plenty of skewering to go around.</p>

<p>BTW, it would be difficult for a non-Harvard student to even see the difference in this proposal and the current core curriculum. They’ve only been debating this sweeping reform for about five years.</p>

<p>My wife chuckled at the talk of interactive teaching. She knows of one core curriculum course this spring with 400 students. Another with 800.</p>

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<p>Okay men, whatever. You sure do show a whole lot of interest in one school’s curriculum. And you don’t seem to be complainin’ about whatever the “mandatory reqs” are at your own kids’ schools.</p>

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<p>Neither of those schools announced a curricular reform proposal today. If they had, we’d probably be talking about it. Mini and I will argue about pret’ near anything.</p>

<p>If you have even remote connections to Havard, this is pretty big news. Like I say, it’s been in the works for years.</p>

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<p>I actually am pleasantly surprised. I liked what I had at Harvard. Three general areas humanities, social science and regular science - you had a choice of taking a full year of courses that were designed as gen. ed. courses or twice as much of departmental courses. I did a mix - Calculus and Physics to satsify science, but Soc. Sci courses for the rest. My major was a Hum. The replacement system always seemed excessively complicated and the courses were so microfocussed many kids came out without the sort of info a good survey course gives you. </p>

<p>This new proposal looks like it could go either way and maybe it could go both ways. I see virtues in both the huge survey of art history and the detailed little course where you actually learn how art historians present their ideas. I’d like a system where the student could decide what would serve them best.</p>

<p>Of course if I were applying to an Ivy today - I’d choose Brown. :)</p>

<p>BTW I agree that the jargon the whole proposal is written in makes it very hard to parse. :(</p>

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<p>Because it is Harvard. You should have noticed by now that some people will just hate that school no matter what it does. Harvard hating is a cottage industry here on CC - one with several devoted practicioners.</p>

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<p>coureur:</p>

<p>It comes with the territory. Everyone hates the Yankees, too.</p>

<p>Academics are great. They can discuss something for 30 years and end with the most complex solution to the simplest problem.</p>

<p>If you think about it, the timed tested 3 math/science, 3 social science, and 3 arts/humanities requirement that I had to fulfill 30 years ago accomplishes almost exactly the same thing in 99% of the cases.</p>

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<p>I guess I was reacting to those–seemed kind of sweeping in their judgments.</p>

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<p>Actually, I could see many intelligent, engaged students avoiding humanities and social sciences classes altogether. This is why MIT has its HASS requirements–8 courses. My S took a humanities class that had 300 students (there were others with fewer students, but the topic did not appeal as much–students have a role to play in the size of some courses; it’s not just a matter of requirements). S liked the course a lot and thought the TF was terrific. I doubt, however, that he would have taken it if he had not had to fulfill requirements.</p>

<p>As for the high schoolish aspect, I’ll have to see what is being proposed. I think some of it is being inspired by the type of teaching pioneered by Eric Mazur, where profs use gadgets to pose quizzes in the middle of lecture to gauge how well the students are following and understanding the materials being presented. I doubt it means making a papier mache mock-up of the Parthenon.</p>

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<p>“Harvard hating is a cottage industry here on CC - one with several devoted practicioners.”</p>

<p>Now. Now. It is not just “Harvard hating”. I can think of at least one other school that gets bashed around quite a bit on cc. ;)</p>

<p>(In fact, it is consistently bashed by some of the same devoted practitioners too!)</p>

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<p>Garland, </p>

<p>My Tim Burke blog comment wasn’t even negative, let alone sweeping. I look forward to his comments as he has blogged extensively about the curriculum in the 21st century, including a model for a new kind of college. His blog attracts a lot of professors and usually generates interesting observations on these issues. Burke was very engaging when he appeard on a Boston public radio show on undergrad education with ex-Harvard Dean, Harry Lewis.</p>

<p>One of the themes that Burke highlights is directly related to the rationale behind Harvard’s existing Core and this new simplified Core: academics and PhD programs have moved so far into little nooks and crannies of ultra-specialized study (e.g. French History from 1731 to 1734) that undergrad teaching fails to connect the dots and engage students in looking at the big picture. He relentlessly argues in favor of professors venturing out of narrow academic fiefdoms to explore a more cross-disciplinary approach, not just for the benefit of undergrads, but for the benefit of academia as a whole in keeping itself relevant. This is, of course, a challenge for the worlds most famous research university, where the departments are geared to train the best and the brightest of the specialized PhDs.</p>

<p>So Burke would have no beef whatsover with the rationale for Harvard’s Core, either the original or this new Core 2.0. His argument will likely be that a micromanaged core is unnecessary. From looking at the current offerings in Harvard’s core, Burke may be correct. If you have a simple 3 science/math, 3 social science, 3 arts/humanities requirement, these are EXACTLY the types of courses that departments offer for non-majors. In fact, they are exactly the types of courses that many colleges are now requiring as freshman seminars capped at 12 students. So, the issue is not one of philosophy, but rather implementation. There are some disadvantages (pedalogical disdesirata?) to requiring the entire student body to select 8 courses from a short list of of mandatory choices.</p>