Should Brown offer a 3-year BA/BS?

mgcsinc
Sun, 27 Jan 2013 02:36:01 +0000

^It wasn’t my intention to imply that there is something “wrong” with choosing a core curriculum. In other posts here, I’ve made it clear that I think that Brown plays an important role as part of an ecosystem of curricular alternatives available to college applicants. If a college applicants thoughtfully compares the curricula and decides that s/he prefers a particular core, then s/he’s made exactly the kind of self-directed choice about education that I find so great. Most people disagree with my personal views about the problems with core curricula, and I understand that.

What I was articulating was my own strongly-held views, which led to my choosing Brown. I believe that core curricula like Chicago’s perpetuate a mythology about the cultural significance of a small slice of White, European culture, and that they lead students to believe that they are well-rounded because they have been fed a set of courses chosen by generations past; that’s why I chose Brown.

PAGRok: There are millions of courses that could accomplish the same goals that you’ve identified. There’s nothing special about Chicago’s core other than that it chooses some rather (in my opinion) tired and dry ways of getting there.

If I was forced to design my own core curriculum from scratch, it would be heavy on mind and brain science, which I see as fundamental to understanding who we are. But I don’t see anyone implementing that anytime soon.