House Seminars: Classes With Dinner Breaks

A common complaint heard in house dining halls, library carrels and expert evaluations of Harvard concerns the virtual absence of contact between faculty and students, often a result of large, impersonal lecture courses.

But Assistant Professor of Neurology Shahram Khoshbin points to the Currier House seminar he taught last year. Not only does he boast that he taught the class to a small group of students, but among them was Baird Professor of Science Dudley R. Herschbach, who even attended class the night after he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

To Khoshbin, who taught Currier 127, "Disorders of the Brain and Behavior," the seminars exemplify one of the few ways the house system fulfills its original intellectual mission. Meeting with tutors in the communal environment of a residential house "increases the collegiate aspect of the course," he says.

"Psychologically, students don't have the feeling that they're doing hard work in the University," says Till M. Roenneberg, a research associate in biology who co-teaches North 119, "Chronobiology: Cells, Organisms, and Temporal Organization," with North House Master J. Woodland Hastings. "If the courses were held in the lecture halls of the bio labs, people would tend to say it's over at half past seven or eight. It's more of an open-ended discussion."

Because the seminars meet in the houses, Roenneberg adds, they can be structured very differently from other courses. A guest speaker would talk for the first half of his weekly class, and then the group would break for dinner in the house before resuming the discussion. This structure, he says, created a much more relaxed and productive atmosphere than the typical Harvard course.

"It's a comfortable atmosphere to work in, as opposed to a lecture or a section," agreed Jean E. Fox Tree '88, a student in Khoshbin's seminar last fall.

The vast majority of house seminar students call their experiences unique and valuable.

"It's a new experience, and I really think that everyone should take at least one house seminar," says Jonathan B. Jarashow, one of the few non-seniors who took a house seminar this year.

"It's probably had a greater effect on me than any other course I've taken," says Daphne M. Bein '88, who took Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Armand M. Nicholi Jr.'s seminar Leverett 104, "Sigmund Freud and His Weltanschauung" last fall.

Despite rave reviews like these, not every house offers seminars. Only seven of the 13 houses--Cabot, Currier, Dudley, Dunster, Leverett, North and Winthrop--sponsored seminars this year.

"A few years ago, apparently they had a few seminars that were rather esoteric, which gave the program a bad name," says Khoshbin.

Legend has it, Herschbach adds, that Kirkland once offered a seminar on football--for credit. "You have to understand, I'm not vouching for it," he says.

Before a seminar is approved by Harvard, it has to receive the approval of a house committee on instruction. As a result, says Susan W. Lewis, who directs the seminar program, the seminars are often exceptionaly well-structured.

"They don't ask if this is something a department should offer," says Hastings, who is professor of biology. "They ask if this is something that is valid to teach."

The seminars, which are taught by members of the houses' Senior Common Rooms, officially are part of the General Education Department, the Core Curriculum's predecessor, which offers courses that do not fit into the guidelines of any one department.

Unlikely to be found in any other part of the course catalogue, seminar titles over the years have included the fantastic "Travel Through Time," the esoteric "Western European Musical Instruments, 1350-1700," and the strictly practical "How to Read a Research Paper in Animal Behavior."

Although all seminars count for credit toward graduation, concentration credit is harder to come by, as it is left to the discretion of each department. Most students receive none.

Many students say, however, that the house seminars offer a distinct advantage over departmental seminars.. "House seminars don't have to fall into any departmental criteria. That frees you up to teach exactly what you like," says Matthew Snyder '88, who took Nicholi's seminar on Freud.

But sometimes independence from specific departments causes problems. Professor of Astronomy and Physics William H. Press says he planned to co-teach a course called "Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear War, Strategic Defense, and Arms Control" at North House last semester. But when physics students were unable to get concentration credit for the course, he decided to teach it in the Physics Department.

A total of 27 students took the two house seminars offered last fall, and 123 students took the eight spring seminars, according to the House Seminar Office. But some professors say they have to choose from as many as 100 applicants. Instructors say they do not give preference to house residents but they often do give preference to seniors, who will not have another chance to take a seminar.

Lewis attributes their popularity to, among other things, the quality of instruction and the intimate atmosphere.

"Clearly, for students, one of the things it has going for it is size," Lewis says. "Also, the topics may be closer to their interests."

Both students and instructors attribute the success of the courses to the format of the seminar as opposed to lecture classes, in which students can feel lost and detached.

Most effective education takes place in the context of a meaningful relationship." says Nicholi. "The seminar facilitates the establishment of these relationships."

"I thought it was corny when people told me `Oh, I learned so much in a seminar,'" says Fox Tree. "But when I took it, it was definitely true."

Often, house seminars attempt to integrate several academic disciplines and approaches to learning. Some people involved in the program say this effort is close in spirit to the philosophy of the Core Curriculum.

Khoshbin, who has taught painting, drawing, and calligraphy at Currier House in addition to his seminar, says his course attempted to integrate art and science by studying the links between the brain and creativity. His course on disorders of the brain is designed to give all students a good conceptual background in both arts and sciences, as is the Core, he says.

"Most of the Core courses should be encouraged to be given as house seminars," Khoshbin says.

But Lewis, who is also director of the Core program, says that the philosphy of house seminars is not necessarily the same as the Core. Each seminar is different, she says, adding that not all teachers share Khoshbin's goal of integrating different approaches and disciplines.

"The house seminar program per se doesn't have those objectives," Lewis says. "It's really very different from the Core."

But Daphne M. Bein '88 says that integrating courses similar to the seminars into the Core would be make the Core more attractive and academically fulfilling.

"I think it would be fantastic if it could be expanded, if they could somehow make seminars part of the Core program," says Bein, who took Khoshbin's Freud seminar. "Far too few people take seminars."

Another factor that may draw students to house seminars is the instructors' real love for the material and for teaching undergraduates, Hastings says. He notes that professors receive no credit with their departments for teaching a seminar and receive no extra pay.

"I feel very strongly that the kind of course we want should not be a teaching load," says Hastings. "It should be a teaching joy."

More than half the seminars are taught by Medical School faculty, a fact Lewis attributes to a desire on the part of those professors to "combine research and teaching."

But Nicholi attributes the undue representation of the Med School to its faculty's particular enjoyment of teaching undergraduates. "People that go into medicine are usually interested in people," he says.

Undergraduates can also be a welcome break for those who normally teach medical students, instructors say.

"These students take the course because they're interested in it. Medical students take biochemistry, which I also teach, by and large because they have to," says Andelot Professor of Biological Chemistry, Emeritus, Claude A. Vilee Jr. who has taught Winthrop 112, "Reproduction, Fertility Control, and Human Welfare," for 10 years.

To some undergraduates, the difference between faculty from the Medical School and the College is unimportant. Many students say the medical faculty sometimes find it hard to adjust to teaching undergraduates.

Some students say they welcomed the opportunity to study with people outside of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Fox Tree says that Khoshbin "brought us over to the Med School one night and showed us around. It was really important to see how the kind of things I'm doing now could be applied to a professional school."

Although some say one reason the seminar system works well is its limited size, many students and instructors agree that the College would do well to have a more extensive house seminar system.

"The houses have enormous resources that could be tapped more effectively if we had a more extensive house seminar system," says Herschbach.

Adds Khoshbin. "The University should pay more attention."