But according to Government Head Tutor Russell Muirhead, the bulk of the “three to 20” requests by undergraduate government concentrators to cross-register each year are approved.
Muirhead says he scrutinizes each request to see if the instructor has a Ph.D. in political science or a related field, whether readings are drawn from scholarly work in government-related disciplines (which he prefers) or newspapers and magazines, whether the written work is similar to FAS-style assignments, and whether the government department offers a similar class.
“We take the education we offer seriously, and we don’t want to devolve that on any other party,” he says. “But we look sympathetically on these requests.”
The increase in collaboration between the Kennedy School and the government department in recent years has by all accounts been beneficial to both faculty and students.
Benjamin L. Read, a fifth-year government Ph.D student, found his seminar with KSG students one of the high points of his time at Harvard.
“I took Bob Putnam’s course, where the participants were across the board, including a lot from the Kennedy School, and it was one of the most stimulating courses I’ve ever taken,” he says. “It wasn’t as keenly focused on academic issues, but it was really fascinating.”
And as the recruitment of such luminaries as William Julius Wilson, Christopher Jencks and Andres Velasco has brought KSG increased academic gravitas, faculty collaboration has increased dramatically.
“For the six faculty members [at KSG] with interests very close to mine, I’ve had as much interaction with them as with people in economics,” Frieden says. “There are lots of opportunities for fruitful collaboration that are specific to a field, and those have taken place.”
Frieden suggests that the greatest obstacles to more collaboration in teaching and reserach are bureaucratic rather than political.
“They have priorities there, and teaching a course at FAS means they have to teach one less course at the Kennedy School,” he says.
Most graduate students and professors alike say that the schools have a lot to learn from each other.
But after more than 20 years of coexistence, this sentiment is not unanimous.
“I’m not sure all my colleagues would agree,” MacFarquhar says.
—Staff writer Daniel K. Rosenheck can be reached at rosenhec@fas.harvard.edu.