Word: core
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...difficult to overestimate the significance of Epps’ regiment. Whether or not it aided racial integration is irrelevant, though it probably did. This was Harvard’s first mandatory intellectual anything in 43 years, and it is everything the Core is not. The program legislates importance; the text is decided by administrative fiat. It built a community: Everyone underwent a shared experience. Epps had singlehandedly revived a tradition that had been dead at Harvard for almost half a century...
...read with great interest in the Oct. 19 Crimson (“A Scientific Problem,” editorial) support for the elimination of my course “Dinosaurs and Their Relatives” from the core because it “fail[s] to provide basic scientific literacy.” Fascinating—especially given that I specifically designed the course to teach key scientific concepts in geology and biology, and the processes of scientific discovery! Perhaps it was a mistake to capitalize on the broad interest in dinosaurs to achieve these goals...
What are the core concepts I teach? First, I introduce the fundamentals of Geology as we consider the vastness of geologic time. I then use the global distribution of dinosaurs to introduce how the Earth operates as a dynamic system—how mantle convection moves the tectonic plates, which in turn control the distribution of natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. We then address how dinosaurs came to be. Here, I concentrate on the central unifying principle in biology, Darwin’s theory of evolution. We then confront the challenging question of how we make inferences...
Even if one were not satisfied by the number of students already taking the course, there is little need to create an entirely new Core category. One solution would have seen economic reasoning integrated into the “Analytical Reasoning” or the “United States and the World” categories...
...discussing the report of the task force on general education with a Crimson reporter the other day, I failed to make my view clear enough. I am quite sorry that as a result, the Crimson story (“Professors Say this Core is Solid,” news, Oct. 10) leaves the impression that I am in some way critical of the course Historical Study B-11: “The Crusades” or of its place in the proposed curriculum. This is particularly regrettable because my intent was quite the opposite. This course has been an important...