The Redbook's authors believed that this goalcould be best met through a study of "Westernheritage"--what would come to be known as a "GreatBooks" curriculum.

But 25 years later, few Harvard students werereading the canon. Undergraduates frequentlysubstituted departmental courses for those"recommended" by the General Education committee,according to Phyllis Keller, associate dean of thefaculty for academic affairs.

"[D]uring the 25 years after 1945,Harvard's...General Education Program underwent analmost satiric distortion of its objectives,"Phyllis Keller writes in Getting at theCore.

Rosovsky, who was appointed dean of the facultyin 1973, received a mandate to restore order tothe undergraduate curriculum--or, in his ownwords, "to make the `fellowship of educated menand women' a more meaningful concept."

To provide all students with a "commonbackground," Rosovsky and a team of facultymembers and students fashioned a program thatwould "assist in creating an atmosphere ofintellectual sympathy among extremely diversestudents," Rosovsky writes.

The emphasis on "modes of inquiry" would alsoallow for both choice of courses and the carryoverof specific skills to other endeavors.

But for all its innovation, critics continue todismiss the Core and its guiding philosophy.Holding the traditional view that what onelearns is more important than how, theseopponents say they prefer distributionrequirements or a "Great Books" curriculum.

Both of these alternatives, they say, wouldbetter fulfill the Core's aim of providing "commongrounding."

"I think the Core is the worst of both worlds,"says Dianne M. Reeder '93, editor of the Salient."On one hand, it offers no set body of knowledge,no common experience to draw on. Also, thedistribution situation is no good because we can'ttake departmental courses."

`Great Books' Curriculum

Like Reeder, prominent educators--includingformer secretary of education William J. Bennettand Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. '38--have writtenthat all undergraduates should study the so-calledclassics of Western civilization.

Hall agrees, saying "even if you believe thatthe canon of Western history and literature hasbeen biased in favor of white, upper-class,straight males, to a large extent they've shapedwhat we have now."

A core that truly provides students with anappreciation of the culture in which they"operate" should include two full, compulsorycourses "devoted to a broad survey of literatureand a broad survey of Western history," Hall says.

But multiculturalists condemn this version of acore curriculum--which exists under similar guisesat Columbia University and the University ofChicago.

Opponents to the "Great Books" curriculum claimthat college curricula are already Eurocentric andshould be shaped to represent non-Westerncultures.