Two interesting pieces from the Crimson today…

First, a report that in money manager Jack Meyer’s last year, the Harvard endowment has risen to $25.9 billion, a 19.2 percent increase. (Only Yale had a better rate of return, with 22%, although its endowment is a comparatively measly $15 billion.) That’ll take some pressure off the need for a new capital campaign…but it will also put new pressure of FAS dean Bill Kirby to explain why he’s cutting back on new faculty hiring.

Meanwhile, a student columnist trashes both the Core Curriculum and its replacement, insofar as that replacement has taken form. “Larry Summers, with his refreshingly willful behavior, was the one hope for grand vision, and he has already excused himself from the Curricular Review altogether, ” writes columnist Travis R. Kavulla.

(Why is it that all Crimson writers seem to insist upon using their middle initials? It’s not as if there can be that many Travis Kavulla’s at Harvard.)

Coupla things.

First, it is interesting to see how Larry Summers has distanced himself from the Curricular Review. A review of his early speeches would show that he was making that review a priority; his first Commencement address laid out his vision of the review. But for a number of reasons—they’re laid out in Harvard Rules—that review has stumbled towards unimpressiveness, and Summers has steadily inched away from any association with it. Now the capital campaign is allegedly focusing on Allston development because the review is such a clunker, the fundraising office doesn’t trust it to inspire alumni contributions….

Second, Kavulla’s column shows just how far today’s students have come from those of the ’60s and ’70s; I’m just not sure if it’s for better or worse. Whereas the students of yesteryear wanted choice and freedom, today’s students want the university’s firm guiding hand to tell them what’s important. They don’t believe that truth is relative or that the journey to knowledge matters more than the acquisition of facts. They’re all business: just tell us what we need to know and get out of our way.

I don’t have a dog in this hunt. But it does strike me that those two educational philosophies, paralleling as they do the politics of their periods, suggest that truth, or at least pedagogy, is indeed relative…it just depends on when you’re looking at it.