Defining the educated person

In his 1974 Letter to the Faculty on Undergraduate Education, Dean Rosovsky listed a series of "substantive" questions and problem areas in the College, ranging from the central goals of undergraduate education to the role of the Faculty outside the classroom.

Since the publication of that "Yellow Letter," these issues have been translated into the dean's seven task forces, each designed to study a particular area of College life. Most of the reports have not yet been completed, but one thing is clear: none of them individually will respond to Rosovsky's first and most basic question about the goals of undergraduate education.

Dean Rosovsky took up that issue himself last week in his annual letter to the Faculty. It is important to set a standard for education now, he suggests, before the Faculty tries to determine whether the task force recommendations will help meet that standard.

In his letter, Rosovsky lists six attributes he believes typify what he terms "an educated person." Before students qualify for their degrees, Rosovsky wrote, they should be able to think clearly, be acquainted with all the methods used to understand the universe, with foreign cultures and with ethical issues, have "good manners and high aesthetic standards," and have achieved deeper understanding in one particular field.

While Rosovsky recognizes objections to his list of standards--from radicals who perceive them as "socializing our students on behalf of this country's 'ruling classes'" as well as from those who fear that the breadth of the curriculum he outlines will promote shallowness in studies--he rejects them all.

He says that his standards neither present a particular political point of view nor emphasize superficiality.

Rosovsky says he expects his letter will be controversial, however, because its general presentation of the task force considerations will initiate a "debate of the issues between those who favor the status quo and those who oppose it."

He remains adamant that the debate will be constructive--one that will lead to a reformulation of undergraduate education. "The proof that this document isn't empty," he said last week, "is that if you read it and if you agree you have to also see that certain changes are necessary. You can't just say 'yes' and then leave things the same."

But Rosovsky's hopes for reforms that will make undergraduate education at Harvard so good "that people will rip the door down to get it," as he has put it, may be even more ambitious than he suggests in his letter.

Any legislation on the issues his letter raises has to go through the full Faculty, a body not known for either speed or predictability. His proposals my be innovative--they certainly imply the need for a core curriculum such as that suggested by the task force headed by James Q. Wilson, Shattuck Professor of Government--but their chances for implementation rely on the Faculty's discretion.

It has been two years since Rosovsky first proposed a discussion of the issues, and it is likely to be at least a year before the task force recommendations are translated into legislative proposals. Rosovsky's ideals may be a long time in taking shape; and it is hard to predict what shape, if any, that will be.