Fifteen years ago, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to implement an ambitious new vision for undergraduate education.

They created a core curriculum designed to provide Harvard students with a broad education in "approaches to knowledge" in the different disciplines.

"Knowledge is growing very rapidly and facts are changing a lot," says Geyser University Professor Henry Rosovsky, one of the core's principal architects. "Teaching people what the major approaches are makes people better prepared to deal with a rapidly changing world, to be an educated person."

But a two-month Crimson investigation shows that in many ways the vision has failed: professors and teaching fellows say "approaches" is little more than a cloak for classes that are watered-down versions of those offered in departments.

"In theory it's a great idea," Marten B. Duncan '94 says. "You need to take other courses, that's the beauty of this college, that you can take liberal arts courses and still be a science major."

Interviews with more than 75 students, 80 teaching fellows and 40 professors and administrators show that Harvard is not giving its students the broad liberal arts back ground the core curriculum is responsible for providing.

Duncan, for one, says the core has taught him "a lot of neat little facts." But it does not provide an understanding of the methodologies of various disciplines, he says.

Many say the time has come for a reexamination of the core--which was last comprehensively evaluated in 1989. Even Rosovsky, the core's founder, says the curriculum should be periodically re-evaluated.

"I do not believe there is a perfect system. These are not the Ten Commandments," Rosovsky says. "Every ten years, we should take a look and make changes."

But despite the numerous problems that burden the core--over-crowded sections, unchallenging course material, underqualified TFs and bored students--Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles says he will not reexamine it anytime soon.

"I do not foresee a major reviews in the immediate future," Knowles says.

Courses the Same

Many professors say their core classes are taught the same way as low-level department offerings, with no special effort to introduce an "approach to knowledge."

"I teach it no differently than I would introductory psychology," says Starch Professor of Psychology Jerome Kagan of his Social Analysis 42 class.

Harvard-Yenching Professor of History Albert M. Craig, who teaches Historical Study A-14, says he "uses the core course as an introduc- tion to the history of Japan," not necessarilyan "approach" to historical methodology.

"Many students use it that way," he says.