Senior Reflects On Core Classes

As a senior who has not only enjoyed all of my core curriculum courses, but also believed them integral to my education. I felt compelled to write in response to William H. Chrisman's guest commentary. "A Problem at Harvard's Core" (Sep. 27, 1994). I admire Mr. Chrisman's Continuing interest in Harvard and his desire to assist in resolving what he views as a threat to the University's prominence. Yet I believe there are a few points he has failed to consider.

In his article, Mr. Chrisman attempts to demonstrate the flaws in the current core curriculum. Perhaps I should consider myself fortunate, for virtually every teaching fellow and professor I have encountered in the core has been excellent, neither "undertrained, undermotivated" or "confused." I have found that the "chronology, content, proportion and priority" which Mr. Chrisman obtained from his General Education requirements are still present in today's core, albeit in a different form.

Mr. Chrisman cites the "firm grounding" in Western Civilization which his General Education courses gave him and states that this in lacking at Harvard today. Yet as an American high school student at a large public high school. I believe that my required American history, European history and world history courses gave me this grounding. I would venture to claim that other American students at public or private high schools received the same. Harvard's population of foreign students more unfamiliar than they would like with Western Civilization have ample survey courses within the History Department to select from, as does anyone, of course.

From everything I have heard about the past composition of Harvard classes, Mr. Chrisman's Class of 1955 would have been (almost without exception) white. Protestant or Catholic, and fairly well-off. Forty years later, my Class of 1995 is vastly more diverse, with people of countless racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds, a good proportion of them from non-Western countries. I therefore must confess that I do not understand the usefulness of requiring all students to have a thorough grounding in Western Civilization. Although a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (a definition which I see the need for only on official documents). I appreciate the opportunity to take courses like Literature and Arts C-16, "Rebirth and Karma in Indian Literature and Ritual." This is a course which Mr. Chrisman singles out, apparently for its specific focus. In my opinion, the current diversity at Harvard simply does not, and should not, allow for a limited core curriculum. To cite and example from my own studies, a course with a non-Western slant which I took in the core curriculum influenced my course selection for the next two semesters and has led directly to my thesis topic. I am not implying that Mr. Chrisman views only courses on Western Civilization as appropriate for the core. He is fact made no such claim. Instead, I am citing Western Civilization because it is the example he himself used to demonstrate the type of classes of which he believed the current core should be composed.

I must also disagree with his argument that the existing core classes are similar to the "rifle shot' narrow courses within broad fields of learning that ruined General Education." I do not know enough to say what "ruined" General Education, but I find the narrow focus of the core courses refreshing when compared to the broad introductory courses required within one's major. As already stated, introductory classes in any field are here for the taking. I also believe that professors who teach in the core curriculum successfully teach "approaches to knowledge" in their core courses, rather than merely exploring one specific topic. One of the best classes I have had at Harvard is Professor of Germanic Philology Eckehard Simon's Literature and Arts C-43, "The Medieval Court." Rather than concentrate solely on the content of the literature itself, we studied the court and politics, knighthood and the rise of chivalry, castles and feudal society. The specific literature of the time was merely a stepping stone, or window, into a broader study of society during the eleventh and twelfth century medieval courts of Europe and its position within the whole of European history. This is only one example of a pattern which I have found repeated throughout all of my core classes.

I do respect Mr. Chrisman and his willingness to address what he views as a serious flew at Harvard, but I simply cannot agree that the core is truly as he describes it. Lesh Sparks '95