Word: extracurricular
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...Harvard, “very little that has to do with the organization of the arts was ever rationally designed.” The result of a mentality that relegated arts to a nice weekend activity for gentlemen, Harvard still leaves artistic endeavors primarily to the individual and the extracurricular arena...
...sense out of the jumble. “The objective ought to be to provide an undergraduate experience in which as many undergraduates as possible could be encouraged to actively be involved in the arts,” Bok says of the initial impetus for an organization to advise extracurricular activity. Porter Professor of Fine Arts Emeritus James S. Ackerman, who chaired the 1970s committee that suggested establishing the OFA, characterizes Bok’s model as one which rewarded broad-based involvement in the arts. “President Bok thought of the arts as an analogy to football...
...lacks strong central programming in the arts has a challenge in balancing the needs of different artist constituencies. Some argue that Harvard’s resistence to preprofessionalism in the arts requires it to provide opportunities for the widest range of people possible—as exemplified by an extracurricular climate where anyone can start an a cappella group. On the other hand, the small but noticeable group of extremely talented artists demands more top-end professors, facilities and curricular opportunities—at the risk of otherwise losing these students, many of whom prefer the liberal arts mindset...
Arts administrators say they hope for the best—an expansion of curricular opportunities for Harvard’s best artists without a reduction in extracurricular activity. They don’t want to see a competition between excellence and diversity and don’t think an administration could completely suppress extracurricular performance. But it’s certainly plausible that if additional space is not acquired, undergraduates with a meaningful but not defining interest in the arts could be crowded...
That legacy persists. Deep down, Harvard would rather study the arts than practice them, at least as part of the formal curriculum. Neil and Angelica Rudenstine loved the arts more than Larry does, I think it is fair to say. But they were largely content to foster undergraduate extracurricular activity. What I have been arguing for, at the moment of the undergraduate curricular review and the planning for Allston, is for administrators and faculty not to ratify the present but to re-imagine the future...