An Outside View of a Harvard Education

Are Harvard's senior faculty members outstanding scholars, setting a tone of appropriately cerebral discourse? Or are they insensitive, remote professors, isolated from the realm of the undergraduate?

They're both, according to a rare external review of undergraduate education at Harvard prepared by nine prominent educators. While "senior faculty set a tone of scholarly erudition," on the one hand, they are also "disengaged" and uninvolved with student issues, the report finds. In addition, the report criticizes the Faculty for its lack of organized input into University-wide educational issues.

But the more than 350 senior members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will have a chance to respond at next week's full faculty meeting. FAS sent copies of the nine-page report this week's to each faculty member and the conclusions of the report are the major item on meeting's agenda.

Presumably, the Faculty will arrive at the proper description of a Harvard faculty member--erudite scholar versus sensitive adviser.

But according to Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education David Pilbeam the Faculty will not make substantive changes in the curriculum as a response to this single report--rather the discussion at the Faculty meeting will be the first step in continuing dialogue on the subject.

The report itself is the result of a three-day visit to Harvard last spring, part of Harvard's reaccreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges conducted once every 10 years. The panel was chaired by Wesleyan President Colin G. Campbell.

The reaccreditation report, offers a rare outside critique of the Harvard undergraduate experience. In particular, the report singles out several weaknesses in University education: the minimal student-faculty contact, the superficiality of Quantitative Reasoning Requirement (QRR), the absense of mathematics teaching in the Core and the little academic advising students receive.

On a broader level, the report says the decentralized decision-making process of FAS prevents any coherent discussion of educational policy.

But even with these criticisms, many professors and administrators say that the report was substantially accurate and that they will address the concerns contained in it.

"I thought it really identified one of the real defects of decentralization," says Pierce Professor of Psychology Richard J. Herrnstein, who is chairman of the Core Curriculum subcommittee on Social Analysis. "Except for the Core, there isn't very much communal discussion of academic matters."

Top FAS administrators, however, say the report is a vindication of Harvard's strengths, and that the criticisms are all very minor. "The results of the inquiry were gratifying," reads a memo sent to all faculty members from Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence in preparation for next week's meeting. "Our institutional strengths, thoughtfully observed by the evaluators, can be a source of pride to faculty, students, and administrators."

Spence's letter downplays the criticisms: "The group also identified what it found to be the defects of our virtues." Spence refused to comment further yesterday.

Other administrators, however, say that the evaluators' criticisms were well-founded, although limited by their short stay at Harvard.

"I didn't think there was very much I disagreed with," says Pilbeam. He says many of the problems with the faculty that the report identifies are the result of Harvard's relatively small number of faculty as compared with other research institutions.

Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core Curriculum, says the report was "very flattering," despite its criticisms. "Of course I think it's right," she says.

In fact, Lewis says she was surprised the evaluating committee did not produce more negative comments on the curriculum. "It was interesting to me that they didn't come up with other things. They spent a very substantial fraction of their time actually focusing on issues related to the Core."

American University Professor of Mathematics Mary Gray, a member of the evaluating committee, says that the criticisms contained in the report are disturbing because Harvard serves as a bellwether for other higher education institutions.

For example, Core science classes are restrained from using more than elementary mathematics, she says. "This really shouldn't be happening at Harvard," she says. "Harvard does share a responsibility to set the tone for what goes on."

The report's most pressing curricular concern is the failure of the QRR and the absence of mathematical instruction in the Core Curriculum. "The current quantitative reasoning test offers no guarantee that the students have a meaningful level of manipulative skills, much less an understanding of quantitative and logical reasoning and the essence of mathematics as a discipline," the report reads.

Gray says, "I was especially concerned to look at the kinds of mathematical education at Harvard, and while it's clear that Harvard does extremely well by its math concentrators, it seems to be clearly in need of beefing up."

These mathematical shortcomings in Harvard's curriculum affect the teaching of science, Gray says, because such expertise cannot be assumed. "Some of the noted authorities in scientific fields [at Harvard] felt that what they could offer non-majors within the Core was greatly inhibited," she says.

Harvard professors say they are aware of this problem. "We said [to the evaluators] from the outset that both students and some faculty were also concerned about" the QRR, says Lewis.

Lecturer in Economics Jeffery Wolcowitz says he agrees with the conclusions of the report as they relate to the QRR. "It is true that the present QRR requirements are not at a very high level," he says. "There has been some discussion to upgrade the program," says Wolcowitz, who is a member of the subcommittee of the Core on the QRR.

Wolcowitz says that such revisions could take the form of more challenging quantitative requirements or a third science Core requirement on mathematics. "There is no sense that the QRR specifically teaches any mathematical disciplines such as calculas," he says.

"The current QRR obviously doesn't send out signals to the world that we expect a high level of quantitative skills," says Paul C. Martin, Vleck professor of pure and applied physics and FAS associate dean for the division of applied sciences. The question that Harvard faces now, according to Martin, is to what extent the requirement should be changed.

"I hope efforts are made to raise it somewhat," Martin says.

The accessibility of senior faculty and the quality of student advising are other significant concerns of the accreditation report. The reviewers perceive "a level of interaction between senior faculty and students that seems lower than might be expected in a situation of such academic plenty."

Pilbeam says the problem of advising is linked to the student-faculty ratio and Harvard's need for a larger teaching faculty. Advising is "an area of legitimate concern," Pilbeam says, but one that can be solved by hiring more faculty and giving incentives to teach for existing faculty members.

Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature Gregory Nagy, the co-master of Currier House, says academic advising is a problem that can be improved through the house system. "I myself see many hidden opportunities within the house system. My wife and I are exploring various ways of introducing senior faculty into the advising system in the houses," Nagy says.

Herrnstein says that he does not agree that senior faculty are unavailable. "I think senior faculty are about, available to undergraduates. The problem is that we're not going after you undergraduates," he says. "But that's really not the Harvard style."

But Herrnstein says he sees a related problem in the Core Curriculum. "It's struggle," he says, to get senior faculty to offer courses to non-concentrators. "The older the Core gets, the more routine it becomes. I think it will get harder and harder." Herrnstein says.