Ahead with the Review

Good things may come to those who wait, but when it comes to the curricular review, Harvard College has waited long enough.

The future of the curricular review has come into doubt in recent weeks with the announcements of two resignations—that of Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby and of University President Lawrence H. Summers. But in his annual Letter to the Faculty last week, Kirby voiced his support for the Faculty and Faculty Council to push forward with the curricular review this spring. He called the curricular review “our highest priority,” warning that Harvard is otherwise at risk of becoming a great research university with merely sub-par undergraduate teaching. “Only when our College and University equally can claim to be second to none can we begin to feel satisfied,” wrote Kirby.

Kirby’s intuitions are correct. The call to put the curricular review on hold until a new Dean of the Faculty has been appointed is erroneous for a number of reasons.

First, we believe that the core of the review—the proposal to replace the current Core Curriculum with broader distribution requirements and optional broad foundational courses—would substantially benefit undergraduates. If it is approved this spring, it should apply retroactively to the Class of 2007 and subsequent graduating classes, so current students can use departmental courses to round out the last of their distribution requirements. Undergraduates must be freed from the shackles of the Core as soon as possible, and in order for the current juniors to take advantage, albeit briefly, of the new system, it must be approved this spring and implemented for the fall semester. (And if the general education proposal does not come up for a vote this term or is passed but is not made retroactive, then Core course offerings should be increased substantially.) This is the most immediate advantage of an immediate debate and vote on the curricular review proposals.

Furthermore, the notion that the Faculty cannot advance the curricular review effectively without a permanent dean or president—that the departure of two men could leave the process so crippled—has little basis in reality. If members of the College community can come together and focus their efforts on the curricular review, as Kirby suggests, it will need no figurehead.

Although the impulse to wait for a new dean before completing the curricular review—presumably in order to allow the new dean to somehow put his or her mark on the project—seems reasonable at first glance, we fail to see the impact such a new dean could (or should) have on the review. The curricular review is already in its late stages. Two-plus years of careful synthesis of ideas have yielded generally reasonable, if not laudable, proposals. At this point, the project needs debate and voting on ideas, not the formulation of new ones. And a lame-duck dean does not create any impediments to debating the current proposals.

Fortunately for the College, awareness of the curricular review is increasing. If last Tuesday’s meeting in Kirkland House is any evidence, students and other members of the College community are giving serious thought to the issues that will directly affect their academic experience at Harvard. The College should work to encourage this ongoing discussion, and it should continue throughout the spring semester through broad discussions. But the dialogue must focus on evaluating the current proposals and suggesting only slight modifications to them, not on brainstorming new ones—the curricular review has already been formulated, and now the Faculty and College community must debate the individual proposals as they are written.

The overarching purpose of the curricular review is to benefit undergraduates, and immediate passage of the centerpieces of the review will expeditiously accomplish this. If an interim dean of the faculty is appointed for the 2006-2007 school year, which, absent a permanent president, is a distinct possibility, then a permanent dean will not take office until the fall of 2007. And if the review is delayed this long, it will surely lose its newfound momentum, much to the detriment of undergraduates. If Harvard College is truly the progressive institution it claims to be, it will not be stifled by the departure of a small handful of individuals. The future of the College lies in the execution of this agenda, and that execution must begin now.