"Great Books" cores promote "a false feeling ofWestern supremacy" when "the issue is of world,not Western, civilization," says Zaheer R. Ali,president of the Black Students Association.
Buell agrees that the Core should have "a goalof inclusion rather than a goal of exclusion." Hecalls the "Great Books" curriculum "anobsolescently paternalistic approach to generaleducation in this day and age."
Both Ali and Raza President Lilia Fernandez '94would like the content of the Core to change byincluding more classes on "non-European" subjectmatter.
BSA is officially calling for an ethnic studiesrequirement, "a class which [would] help people tounderstand the complex issues of ethnicrelations," according to Ali.
Another problem with the "Great Books"curriculum is the lack of student choice, say someundergraduates and faculty. Harvard's Core programprovides students with the opportunity to selectfrom a range of courses within each category.
"There is nothing more dreary than having toteach people who are not interested in yourcourse," says Porter University Professor ofEnglish Helen H. Vendler.
And Gil B. Lahav '94, a transfer student fromColumbia, says that students and professors at hisold school would sometimes circumvent the aim ofthe Great Books curriculum by "focusing on currentevents."
Faculty support for the Core remains strong.Vendler says that Harvard should not move towardsthe Great Books program because "there is noindispensable document to a solid education."
Mellon Professor of the Humanities Thomas M.Scanlon Jr. also rejects the idea that there arecertain books that every educated person must haveread. Like Rosovsky and the other framers of theCore, he stresses that the Core can accommodate awide range of students.
"This Core allows you to emphasize `greatbooks,' but you don't have to," says Scanlon, whois a member of the Core Committee.
Meanwhile the Undergraduate Council continuesto press the Core Committee to bring moredepartmental courses into the Core. The councilhas successfully moved, with the Core Committeeand Carswell Professor of English SacvanBercovitch, "Myth of America" into the Core'sLiterature and Arts A category.
And although the process of bringing adepartmental course into the Core takes about ayear, both the Council and the Core Committee areeager to make more additions to the program, Buellsays.
Still, in a community of more than 6,000students, some are bound to grumble that the Coreneeds minor repairs. And still others willcontinue to question the validity of the Core'sphilosophy.
But even the dogmatic Redbook recognized thatthis sort of debate could only be healthy.
"General [e]ducation," it reasoned,"perpetuates itself, if only by seeking todiscover what it itself is."