Word: peer
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Indeed, Harvard’s peer institutions have already recognized and embraced the potential of this type of learning. The University of Pennsylvania boasts 46 academic courses in 19 different departments that integrate classroom experience with work in the neighborhoods of West Philadelphia. Other Ivies also have strong community-based learning programs, which have flourished, in large measure, because they support professors in developing curricula that integrate activity-based work with classroom learning. Activity-based components are not merely tacked onto courses as an afterthought, as the latest model proposed by Harvard’s Task Force on General Education...
Knowles’ comparisons pit Harvard against peer institutions. At Yale, for example, 39 percent of professors are hard scientists—3 percentage points above the figure for Harvard. (Princeton, Stanford, and Berkeley are even more heavily weighted toward the hard-science side.) Meanwhile, just 24 percent of Yale faculty members are social scientists, 10 percentage points below the Harvard figure. (The other three schools’ faculties have even smaller social science contingents...
...Knowles doesn’t compare the Harvard student body to that of peer institutions. Just 42 percent of Princeton undergrads and 37 percent of Yalies concentrate in the social sciences, well below below Harvard’s 54 percent. Both Stanford and Berkeley boast far fewer (25 and 30 respectively...
...other words, compared to its peer institutions, Harvard has a modestly higher percentage of social science professors—and a vastly higher percentage of social science majors...
Knowles writes that he does “not mean to suggest that we should blithely or blindly follow trends elsewhere.” But if Harvard follows Knowles’ plan, we will be doing exactly that. The plan will bring Harvard more in line with peer institutions—and further out of step with its own students’ needs...