Walter Jackson Bate '39, Lowell Professor of the Humanities and chairman of the Core subcommittee on Literature and the Arts, thinks the standing committee in the past has been "awfully strict and literal" in its interpretation and enforcement of the Core guidelines. However, he says that now, since the standing committee has approved nearly 100 courses, it may loosen up. "The subcommittees are being encouraged to widen the variety and types of courses they recommend. Now we're taking the wraps off, and it's about time," he says, adding that he can envision the Core soon including broader, survey-type courses as a supplement to what is already there.
To the three structure-related characteristics which Rosovsky cites as unique to the Core, the dean adds another distinguishing feature. "Hopefully, they are also set apart by the fact that they are quality courses," he says, adding, "But there, you win some and you lose some. I still think that the effort made to make them high quality courses is greater than in the average course."
Bowersock looks on that higher quality characteristic as the most important: "I don't think any curriculum can stand on theory--what matters is that the theory is backed up by solid teaching." In Bowersock's case, it was. For his Historical Study B-11, "The Christianization of the Roman World,"--which, Bowersock says, he would not have developed if not for the Core--he spent months poring over primary sources, ultimately compiling enough research to fill an 800-page volume he used in the class. "It was a wonderful experience, and I think from the responses of students that they enjoyed it too," says Bowersock, who will not offer the course again because he is leaving Harvard this summer for the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
While he rejects theory for theory's sake, Bowersock says he sees benefit in the theoretical basis for the Core's structure because it encourages professor to rethink what they are teaching. "You can't just walk up to a professor and tell him to develop a course--you need a structure to provide the impetus," he explains.
Although one year is not a sufficient length of time to judge the revitalizing effects of the Core, "I think a lot of people are very enthused about their own teaching--people tell me that they're working on their Core courses and are interested in them. I think that's a very good sign," Rosovsky says. He adds that "it's obvious that the Faculty knows I'm interested in this, so they're more likely to talk to me about their Core courses than they are about their courses in molecular biology."
One of the reasons for Faculty enthusiasm over the Core, according to Bowersock, is that the program is "a prestige item--the place to be seen now is in the Core." Solbrig points especially to the Science courses as ones taught by some of Harvard's most renowned scholars--including Nobel Prize-winners Steven Weinberg, Higgins Professor of Physics, and Sheldon L. Glashow, professor of Physics.
Faculty legislation mandates that the Core undergo an extensive review in spring 1982. What that review turns up is anybody's guess, but for now, after one year of witnessing the Core in action, Rosovsky says he is encouraged, especially by the large number of courses developed specifically for the Core--about 70 per cent of those offered. He calls the program "the greatest injection of new courses in Harvard's history."
Based on that and the quality of professors teaching in the program, Rosovsky says, "I allow myself to hope that we have improved undergraduate education. I've always said curriculum is not the only issue in undergraduate education. I realize that very well. There are many other things, but this is one discrete part." Discrete, perhaps, but definitely the most prominently displayed.