After Missteps, Gen Ed Report Is Released

The long-awaited final report of the Harvard College Curricular Review’s Committee on General Education was released yesterday, calling for the implementation of a system of distribution requirements that can be fulfilled with departmental courses and selections from a new addition to the educational roster—year-long “Courses on General Education.”

The release is a significant milestone in the first major overhaul of undergraduate education since the creation of the Core Curriculum, a product of the 1970s Curricular Review.

The report comes almost eight months after the committee’s first attempt, a nine-page draft, was returned to the group for revision after receiving criticism from early readers.

The detailed 40-page “final revision,” which largely echoes a 48-page internal draft viewed by The Crimson in September, lays out a distribution system to replace the oft-criticized Core.

Members of the Committee on General Education presented the report to the Faculty Council, the 18-member governing board of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), at its meeting yesterday.
The committee presented a draft to the Council early in the semester, and the latest draft reflects the Council’s feedback.

“Each draft has been better than the one before it,” said Classics Department Chair Richard F. Thomas, a member of the Faculty Council. “We have a good document to work with and discuss in departments.”

Under the proposed new system, Harvard undergraduates would be required to take three courses in each of three major areas—Arts and Humanities, the Study of Societies, and Science and Technology.

Students would effectively be required to take six courses outside of their concentration, because concentration courses would fulfill the requirements for one of the three disciplines.

The report calls for students to fulfill their requirements through departmental courses, with the option of also using broader year-long courses to fulfill some requirements. These courses would not fall under any particular department, but instead make up a special category of “Courses in General Education.”

The Courses “would be synoptic and integrative in approach, and topically both wide-ranging and of considerable depth,” the report says. It suggests that such courses be team-taught by members of different departments.

The proposal’s reliance on departmental courses is a significant departure from the current system, which often draws sharp distinctions between general education and departmental courses.

WHEELS IN MOTION
Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby and Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71, the co-chairs of the Committee on General Education, called for vigorous discussion of the report by faculty and students in a letter released yesterday with the report.

They invited faculty members to e-mail their thoughts or to post comments to an online forum.

The deans also announced an informal “Student-Faculty Forum on General Education” to take place in University Hall’s Faculty Room on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 4 p.m.

Citing a need for time to discuss the report in small groups, Thomas said that the report would not be on the docket at the Nov. 8 meeting of the full Faculty. It is expected to appear on the docket for the following Faculty meeting, on Nov. 22.

After undergoing a final process of public revision through faculty and student discussion, legislation will be drafted based on the recommendations. That legislation will eventually be voted on by the Faculty.

In contrast to the Committee’s March draft, the new report explains both the reasoning and trade-offs behind its recommendations. It also spends significant time discussing the historical context of general education at American universities.

The report writes that the Core’s current requirements “lack a compelling educational rationale” for the restrictions placed on students. It describes a need for a dramatic shift in general education away from the specificity that has troubled the Core in recent years.

“One weakness of the Core Curriculum as it exists today is that it provides too weak a counterweight to the specializing tendencies of the concentrations,” the report says.

Various models which include more specific requirements in addition to the three major disciplines, such as quantitative or moral reasoning requirements, are discussed and rejected in favor of greater simplicity and student choice.

The report also emphasizes the importance of creating Courses on General Education “that counter the fragmentation of knowledge that is sometimes produced by overspecialization.” These courses are meant to present an additional option for students—they will not be required.

Addressing the openness of the proposed system of general education, Kirby wrote in an e-mail last night that “the majority of the committee preferr[ed] to err on the side of recommendations, not requirements.”

The full report is available to the public on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ website.

At its meeting next Tuesday, the Faculty will continue a discussion of the Educational Policy Committee’s report that began last week. Professors will also hear a report from Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Theda Skocpol on the state of the school.

Skocpol gave the Faculty Council a preliminary look at that report during the Council’s meeting yesterday.
—William C. Marra contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer Allison A. Frost can be reached at afrost@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.