Word: cores
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When the first sketchy outlines of what has become a very intricate set of proposals came to light last year, most students and Faculty members believed only five new areas of general education would be established, to replace the three existing areas. However, the Core report recommends a much more rigid program with ten specific areas in all. This is unacceptable: although we recognize the inevitability of some type of Gen Ed revisions, ten areas constitute an unnecessarily excessive infringement on students' freedom of choice. Indeed, most members of the Harvard community were prepared to accept the verdict...
AMAJOR PROBLEM with the new Core curriculum is the attempt by its authors to delineate carefully the structure and content of courses to be designated as "core courses." Whether Faculty members will be willing to teach the types of courses outlined in the report is not clear; the Core proposal might well set up the type of lecture courses that no one likes to teach, and no one likes to take...
...while inadequate, at least makes some concessions to the individualized talents of Faculty members. To attempt to eradicate much of the educational innovation present in many small, specialized courses would be a misguided effort. Furthermore, the Faculty Council's unwillingness to allow students to by-pass some of the Core requirements by taking selected combinations of departmental courses further indicates the authors' determination to restrict student freedom...
...Core Curriculum is only a poor substitute for the good advice and counseling that would direct, but not coerce students to attain a balanced education. And the Core will not solve one of Harvard's fundamental problems: the dearth of close associations between students and Faculty members. Instead, by setting the huge introductory course up as the basis of a Harvard education, the Core proposal would only widen the gulf between students and Faculty members. A Harvard education could easily be reduced to instruction by busy graduate students who are much more interested in pleasing their doctoral advisers than accommodating...
...Faculty will most likely accept some form of the Core proposal. But the current proposal, which may soon be the new system, is sadly out of tune with student needs. Students and faculty should work quickly to stop the current proposal and help create a viable alternative within the core framework--not out of contempt for its creators, but out of objections to their methods and a serious concern for a better undergraduate education at Harvard...