Word: curriculum
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...essay begins with a brief history of the rise and fall of ethics instruction in universities. From there, Bok finds various ways of answering an emphatic yes to the essay's title question. Bok argues that courses in ethics can be integrated into the curriculum of colleges and professional schools. These courses, he writes, can accomplish three objectives: they can help students become more alert in discovering the moral issues that arise in their own lives, they can teach students to reason carefully about ethical issues and they can help students clarify their moral aspirations...
...concedes that arguments against incorporating ethics into the curriculum may have some force. He respects the claim of one Business School spokesman who, in explaining why there are no ethics courses in that school, said: "On the subject of ethics, we feel that either you have them or you don't." He notes that "formal education will rarely improve the character of a scoundrel...
...however, that must be reconciled before the true value of teaching ethics can be determined. Inconsistencies within Harvard itself make a good case in point. In the law school, for example, it is difficult to understand how a brief course in ethics will stand in the way of a curriculum geared largely towards sending students to corporate law firms. These law firms often work for the highest bidder, no matter how unethical that bidder may be. Also, it is not clear how students in law school will be able to grasp the situations in which they will have to make...
...think we might all agree without protracted discussion that an understanding of the value and uses of intellect is essential for an educated person. But the question is: how are "arts and habits" inculcated in a most efficient and lasting manner? Not by a one-sided or specialized curriculum alone, nor by a system of general education that is unfocused and relatively unstructured...
There has been a tendency in recent years to reduce requirements and multiply options in the curriculum of Harvard College. This tendency developed largely in response to the growing diversity and wide-ranging interests of our students. Many of the changes encouraged intellectual vitality. Two important consequences, however, are that the curriculum no longer expresses clearly our basic educational aims and it does not establish a common basis for intellectual discourse. Once we have clarified our goals--which I do not think is the most difficult part of our current review--the next major task is to design a curricular...