Harvard in biggest curriculum overhaul in 30 years

[Joanne98]

By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - Harvard University announced on Wednesday its biggest curriculum overhaul in three decades, putting new emphasis on sensitive religious and cultural issues, the sciences and overcoming U.S. "parochialism."

The curriculum at the oldest U.S. university has been criticized as focusing too narrowly on academic topics instead of real-life issues, or for being antagonistic to organized religion. Efforts to revise it have been in the works for three years.

One of the eight new required subject areas -- "societies of the world" -- aims to help students overcome U.S. "parochialism" by "acquainting them with the values, customs and institutions that differ from their own," said a 34-page Harvard report on the changes.
An earlier proposal would have made Harvard unique among its elite Ivy League peers by requiring undergraduates to study religion as a distinct subject, but that was dropped in December.

The changes to the general-education requirements, imposed on students outside their major, still address religious beliefs and practices. Study of those issues, however, would be folded into a broader subject of "culture and belief."

The "culture and belief" requirement will "introduce students to ideas, art and religion in the context of the social, political, religious, economic and cross-cultural conditions" that shape them, Harvard said.

Founded to train Puritan ministers 370 years ago, Harvard has been criticized by some conservatives in recent decades as a liberal bastion unfriendly toward religion. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-02-07T180054Z_01_N06274964_RTRUKOC_0_US-HARVARD.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-R1-MostViewed-3

[brentspeak]

1. This only affects the 1,500 or so undergraduates who enroll in Harvard every year

More media swooning over what goes on at the so-called "elite" colleges and universities.

[Scooter24]

9. You will be surprised at how much influence

colleges, like Harvard or Yale, have when they make substantial curriculum or policy changes. Many schools emulate the foundations laid at the schools and already these changes have been broadly favored by many curriculum experts and teaching associations.

Harvard recently announced they were doing away with EA and many schools followed behind them.

They may be "elite," but these schools still hold considerable weight in the world of universities.

[xchrom]

2. how much does this have to do with that conservative

headmaster they hired a few years back?

and that professor of history -- oh what's hs name -- he' wrote a translation of the prince -- he's a neo-straussian of the first degree -- oh shit -- it's michael something i think.

[Joanne98]

4. I can't think of his name either. But I know what you mean...

This could be a set up.

[xchrom]

6. Lol -- doesn't that just drive you nuts?

Especially this guy is a Super Conservative Intellectual.

so i should remember!

[ozone_man]

3. Yes to teaching cultural diversity.

And hooray for dropping religion! But belief sounds a lot like religion in disguise. Perhaps it is time to teach rationalism alongside belief? How about a course with rationalists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Bertrand Russell to add balance? Or would that shake the Harvard's Puritan foundations?

I think belief in the context of cultures is fine though. It's part of civilization, a necessary phase that we have gone through, and one that will hopefully be left behind.

[ellisonz]

5. The last sentence in the article (Francis Bacon rolls in his grave).

"Other new requirements include the study of empirical reasoning, ethical reasoning, the science of living systems, the science of the physical universe, and "aesthetic and interpretive understanding."

I'm glad I go to the antipode to Harvard...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_college

The freshman required course: http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/hum110/syllabi/06-07/Fall06syllabus.html

There's Spring too which is Rome to Christianity.

[Posteritatis]

10. I kinda figured Reed was BJU's antipode, myself. ;) (nt)

[tishaLA]

12. I think harvard's idea is better

and will be less eurocentric (Grecian?) than Reed's version. My university--again, an Ivy school--has a "great books" requirement for freshman, but, thankfully, we didn't spend all our time on Euro-American texts. We read the Koran, African oral epics, Japanese novels, etc. The university thought it was important to inculcate us into the *world* of ideas, not Mediterranean culture.

And, I have to say, as someone who ostensibly practices literary studies, I think the idea of doing "aesthetic and interpretive understanding" as part of the core curriculum is a great idea.

[redacted]

7. What they ought to do is overhaul the law school, which trained Alberto Gonzales

If they really care about society, that's the part of the university that needs the work, not Harvard College.

[Scooter24]

11. Already done...

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2006/10/06_curriculum.php

Post Date: October 6, 2006

The Harvard Law School faculty unanimously adopted a reform of the required first-year curriculum yesterday, after a three-year process of study and consultation with legal academics, faculty from other professional schools, and practicing lawyers.

Specifically, the changes seek to ensure:

*greater attention to statutes and regulations;
*introduction to the institutions and processes of public law;
*systematic attention to international and comparative law and economic systems;
*opportunities for students to address alone and in teams complex, fact-intensive problems as they arise in the world (rather than digested into legal doctrines in appellate opinions) and to generate and evaluate solutions through private ordering, regulation, litigation and other strategies;
*more sustained occasions to reflect on the entire enterprise of law and legal studies, the assumptions and methods of contemporary U.S. law and the perspectives provided by other disciplines, and to develop a common fund of ideas and approaches relevant to designing effective and just laws and institutions.

To pursue these goals, the law school will add three new course requirements to the first-year curriculum:

*A new course focusing on legislation and regulation;
*Each student will take one of three specially crafted courses introducing global legal systems and concerns - Public International Law, International Economic Law, and Comparative Law;
*A new course, Problems and Theories, will focus on problem solving, while introducing students to theoretical frameworks illuminating legal doctrines and institutions.

[redacted]

13. Three new courses? What will they cut? Torts? Civil Procedure? Contracts?

Criminal Law, Property, Legal Writing or Moot Court?

Or will they just ADD the three new courses to the standard lineup and work everybody to death?

And I'd love to learn how well things work for them teaching an economic law class with weeks and weeks of nothing but Q & A. Maybe they'll actually use problem sets, like a real grad school econ class. Revolutionary!

[Doctor_J]

8. Probably will get more PC

Look for "Intelligent Design" and pro-war and pro-corporation courses.

[Orangepeel]

14. It sounds like they are talking about comparative religion classes

which never made anybody more religious. IMO, there's nothing like studying multiple religions to make you realize that the beliefs you grew up with are largely a happenstance of geography.

Curriculum review is usually a faculty driven endeavor, so any conservatives hoping this will make Harvard less "unfriendly" toward religion will probably be disappointed.

[sweetheart]

15. not enough

They need a guillotine to complete the process....