This Took Two Years?
The Crimson today has an important
story about the pathetic state of the curricular review. The Committee on General Education, probably the heart of the review process, has about finished its report...but those who have seen it say the report is so vague, the committee should start from scratch.
Apparently the committee advocates that Harvard College students be required to take nine courses from three different areas: the sciences, the "study of societies," and "humanities and the arts." Two of those courses should be the new "Harvard College" courses, which are intended to be interdisciplinary, survey courses that teach a specific body of knowledge. (Unlike courses in the current Core curriculum, which are intended to teach "ways of thinking.")
Part of the problem, according to the Crimson, is that no one has bothered to give an example of what a Harvard College course is supposed to be. I suspect that's because the distinction between a Harvard College course and any other course is so vague as to be meaningless. If you actually try to define such a course, the banality of the idea would become embarrassingly obvious.
There's another problem. After two years of work, this is the best that Harvard College can come up with? The plan above sounds like something any professor could sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin in about five minutes time.
