Hard-Core: A Look at Sciences in the Core Curriculum on the Eve of Policy Changes Affecting Class of

Leah F. Kaplan '02 decided to come to Harvard for a variety of reasons, but the science classes were not among them. In fact, she says, had there been a tougher science or math requirement, she might not have come to Harvard at all.

"If there were an equal requirement for science as there is for humanities," she says, " Harvard would not have been the obvious choice that it was for me."

Since the 1970s, when Harvard did away with the General Education requirements and replaced them with a Core curriculum, there has been an ongoing debate about both the quality and the quantity of required science and math education.

And with two policy changes going into effect next fall, the College is turning its attention towards strengthening the place of math and sciences in the Core.

Weak at the Core?

Since the Core replaced the General Education breadth requirements in the 1970s under then dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky, the curriculum has come under fire for giving insufficient attention to math and the natural sciences.

"Before the Core, General Ed required two courses in humanities, two social sciences, and two in the sciences. [Natural science] was one third and now it's one fourth of the Core," says Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences John E. Dowling '57 who was on the CRC. "This has made a number of people say we've shortchanged science."

In 1997, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) set up a Core Review Committee (CRC) to examine the curriculum and suggest how it might be improved. Composed of six professors and two students, the CRC produced a working paper that was released in March of that year and included significant discussion of Core science requirements.

Pforzheimer University Professor, and Chair of the CRC, Sidney Verba '53 says that though it is difficult to know "how much is enough," certainly no one on the CRC would have objected to more science in the Core.

"You could make an argument that no one should have less than four or five courses in science," Verba says, "but given constraints on time, it may be that the core is adequate. It really is impossible to know what the right answer is."

What does an adequate education in science mean? Faculty members say it is hard to define and that it is difficult to quantify how much is enough science. Some are also careful to acknowledge that distinctions between different disciplines are often artificial.

"This whole business about how is enough has been a subject was a topic of debate since the Core was founded," says Henry Ehrenreich, Clowes professor of science who also chairs the FAS sub-committee on science.

"There are people who think there is too little science and there are those of us who think these things tend to take care of themselves," he says. "A single discipline can't see you through life."

Soft Science

Besides the fewer science requirements in the Core, science concentrators often scoff that the courses offered are not very "science-y" in nature and that it is possible to graduate from Harvard learning very little about how the natural world works.

Science B-16, "The History of Life," for example, will accept term papers written on the American Civil War, while students turned in miniature models of Stonehenge and handmade clothing painted with constellations as final projects for Science A-17, "The Astronomical Perspective."

The majority of Faculty members, however, say that the Core curriculum does indeed provide an adequate science education and does not necessarily need to be revamped.

According to the review committee's working paper, the goal of the Core science classes is to "convey a general understanding of experimental and theoretical science as a way of looking at human beings and the world."

And the Core does accomplish that goal, Faculty members say.

"I think they certainly get enough basics about how one thinks about science," Ehrenreich says. "Both in Science A in the quantitative aspects of science and in Science B in the biological sciences."

Other Faculty members, however, acknowledge that they are some Core classes that more approximate the pure science classes concentrators have to take, and are more "hardcore," but they are not as popular.

"There are some [more rigorous science classes] and I'm afraid students stay away from them unfortunately," Dowling says.

Verba points out that pure math and science classes often require special knowledge and abilities that the social science and humanities don't, putting extra pressure on a non-science concentrator who has to take a standard chemistry or physics course.

"There is a way in which social sciences and humanities are more accessible to scientists than science is to humanists and social scientists," Verba says. "I've been told by physicists that I'll never understand what they are talking about, and I accept that."

Verba admits that "it's probably true" that the science classes in the Core are not very "science-y" but that students still learn a great deal from them.

"In a way that's too bad. Hardcore science gives you an understanding of the world," he says. "An awful lot of the classes do try to explain what scientists do, even though the students may not be doing it at the same level."

In marked contrast to most professors, James L. Michel '76, head tutor of biochemical sciences, says he is dismayed by the science education at Harvard for non-science concentrators and those who are pre-med.

"Students who are in the sciences have requirements in math and science," he says. "Everyone else has watered down requirements which are not adequate today to be an intellectual person."

"Science concentrators take liberal arts courses and do well," Michel says. "Non-science concentrators slip by with a much weaker preparation in the science."

No More Scores for Cores

If two science classes seem like a small requirement to fill, remember that many students really only take one.

Until the Faculty eliminated the exemption earlier this year, students could substitute Advanced Placement (AP) scores for Cores. The beauty of AP exams; for those who attended high schools offering AP biology, chemistry or physics, getting a score of four or five means that you can place out of one--but only one--of the science Core classes.

Yet science is the only requirement one can fill with AP credit. Harvard does not consider AP history or English scores as adequate substitutes for either historical studies or literature and arts Core requirements.

According to most Faculty members, allowing AP science classes to take the place of higher level Harvard ones leaves those students who to take advantage of this option at a disadvantage.

"Because people come from a diversity of high school backgrounds," Ehrenreich says, "some have classes equivalent to ours, but nowhere do you find equivalent teachers involved in research. The are real experts, far greater than those in high school."

"Basically, the AP tests are what we would consider high school-level science and math, they are useful only for placement--not for credit--in most cases," Michel says. "Students in the sciences take much more rigorous courses in math and sciences."

Mean, Mode and More Math

Yet, for the class of 2003 there is a new Core requirement which some Faculty members say will help balance out the curriculum and better prepare graduate for the modern, technological world.

Both the CRC and a student committee that studied the undergraduate requirements in 1996 suggested that a Quantitative Reasoning course requirement be added to the Core curriculum. In May 1997 the Faculty approved the suggestion.

Though students and the campus press reacted with groans to an additional non-concentration requirement, Faculty members say it is absolutely necessary in today's day and age. Filling the requirement with a simple test is not enough, they say.

"We were concerned about adding more classes. We didn't want to expand the requirements but we felt it was needed," Verba says. "There is almost nothing in the contemporary world that doesn't revolve around understanding statistics, probability, and inference. It's really an important area to make as an area of education."

"People need to learn how to think quantitatively--We do live in a technological age. Technology, economics and government are intertwined," Ehrenreich says. "We need to understand the numerical ways of expressing trends which have to do with society in a general way. It's very reasonable to add this requirement.

Balancing the Education Equation

So does this all add to a difference in education between science and non-science concentrators? Not according to most professors. They say that a Harvard experience is what one makes of it, and that most students here do go out of their way to get a broader education.

Ehrenreich says that he always advises his students to take a range of classes because when they go on to graduate school they are going to have to narrow their focus tremendously.

He says that though he works with science concentrators, he often sees his students taking many humanities classes.

The opposite seems to be true in some cases as well. Though science courses are notoriously more difficult and graded more harshly, some humanities and social science concentrators do brave them.

"You can get by in things in other fields without putting that much in, and end up with an unbalanced education," Verba says.

"Or, he says, "you can be a science concentrator and pick up a rich humanities education, but it's harder to do the opposite. I know many students in social sciences or humanities who do serious sciences beyond the Core because they're interested in it."

Harvard is not known for coddling its students, and that holds true in academics as well. Whether a student gets a well-rounded education during their four years in Cambridge is entirely up to them, since Harvard does not force science on anyone.

"We leave it pretty much up to the students," Dowling says. "It's fairly easy to slide through here. Harvard is not so interested in mediocre students who aren't ambitious-- we cater to those who are excited intellectually."