Yesterday we criticized the Doty Committee's definition of the goals of General Education for being too vague and failing to explain fully the role of a Gen Ed course. Today we will examine the Doty Report's specific revisions of Gen Ed to show that ill-defined goals have led to ill-defined, at times contradictory, proposals for a new program of General Education at Harvard.

I

THE REPORT'S REASONING--Before the Doty Committee put forward its new rules for reformulating General Education, it examined three basic problems in the present Gen Ed program. One of these problems, "the inadequacy of the present administrative structure to provide a major, required program," bears only indirectly upon the new rules. But the Committee's analysis of the other two problems illustrates the assumptions upon which the new rules were based.

According to the Committee, one crucial difficulty is that "Gen Ed requirements have been too inflexible to take into account the various levels of student preparation, and the courses offered have been too limited in number." Specifically the Committee detected three failings in the present system of requirements. First, elementary Gen Ed courses are all given at approximately the same level of difficulty. Second, elementary Gen Ed courses do not lead directly to opportunities for further study. And last, students have too little choice of courses at the elementary level.

The report also complained that "the content of the present program is so organized that it either underemphasizes or omits some of the most vigorous areas of modern thought." In the Humanities, the Committee felt there was a lack of instruction in the non-verbal arts and that, "even more significantly," practical (as opposed to historical and critical) instruction in the arts was slighted. In the Social Sciences the Committee noted that the present program neglects non-western cultures and does not give enough attention to the behavioral sciences. Finally, the Committee deplored a general underemphasis of the Natural Sciences--roughly half of Harvard and Radcliffe students take only one science course and that is often a soft, non-lab offering.

Building on this analysis of deficiencies in content and requreiments, the Doty Committee submitted three basic goals for a reorganized Gen Ed program. The new program should 1) include areas of knowledge not adequately represented in the current program, 2) introduce a greater variety of course offerings accommodating various levels of preparation, and 3) provide course sequences so that students can pursue special interests in greater depth than is now possible.

To meet these goals, the Committee proposed that the tripartite division of knowledge into Natural Sciences, Social Science, and Humanities be replaced with just two categories, Sciences and Humanities (see box at left). In addition, the Committee formulated the following rules for the new Gen Ed program:

1. Students must take two courses each in Sciences, Humanities, and a division consisting of electives.

2. At least ONE of the courses in the Sciences must be in the Natural Sciences category; the other may also be in either the Natural Sciences or the Behavioral Sciences.

3. In both the Humanities and Sciences divisions, two full courses, one of which is above the elementary level, may be substituted for one General Education course. However, at least one General Education course that cannot count for concentration must be taken in each of the two divisions.

4. Two full courses required in the electives division may be selected either from among the General Education Electives or from among the General Education courses in Humanities and Sciences (to the limit of four for the entire program), or from among departmental courses that cannot count for concentration.

II

THE BASIC CONTRADICTION--The basic contradiction in the Doty Report arises from the Committee's assessment of the two broad, non-administrative shortcomings in the Gen Ed program. On the one hand, the Committee cites the high level of preparation among freshmen and uses this as an argument for Gen Ed sequences in depth. On the other hand, the Committee feels that the present program should rectify its omission of important segments of modern thought, suggesting the need for greater breadth in the program. Thus, even in the Committee's most fundamental recommendations, a contradiction between breadth and depth is evident.

Moreover, if one examines the first specific goal for reorganizing Gen Ed rules--including new areas of knowledge--and also remembers that a cardinal aim of Gen Ed is to encourage students to take a broader view of their own specialty through work in other fields, one realizes that the Doty Committee is emphasizing the need for breadth in Gen Ed, is asking that students delve into three or four broad areas of knowledge.

However, upon examining the third goal for reorganizing the rules of General Education--providing course sequences--as well as the rules themselves, one must conclude that the report is encouraging students to "concentrate" in certain areas of Gen Ed. Under the new rules it would be possible to satisfy Gen Ed requirements in a relatively cavalier fashion. For example, a premed English major could take one Humanities course, two departmental courses in fine arts, one sciences course, two courses in physics or chemistry and two upper level Latin courses, thus fulfilling his Gen Ed requirement without taking a course in the behavioral sciences or in history or government.