ROOM TO BREATHE

In working to design such a new general education model, professors and administrators have emphasized one central theme of the review itself—more student choice.

“The goal would be to provide students with more flexibility,” Gross says, “while still giving a strong indication of what courses the faculty would recommend for a general education.”

Kirby also emphasizes the review’s concern with additional curricular freedom for students.

“What has been discussed is broadly a curriculum of opportunities, not requirements,” he said.

To that end, those involved with the curricular review have worked to both innovate and compromise.

“What seems to be emerging is a more flexible distribution requirement, supplemented by some specially designed courses on large themes and important topics, geared to non-specialists,” General Education Committee member and Bass Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel writes in an e-mail.

Professors say the new curriculum will adapt and incorporate some of the successful components of the current Core, combining them with more opportunities for students to take departmental courses or Harvard College courses to fulfill their general education requirements.

Gross says that such a combination would be a better method than either distribution requirements or the Core alone. It would mix the breadth of the latter with the established, generally-available body of courses that Harvard now offers in its 11 Core areas.

“We don’t think a simple distribution requirement would work; there needs to be a mechanism for getting the right kind of foundational courses taught,” he says.

Kirby also says that it would be recommended that the Harvard College courses be organized into a smaller number of disciplines.

“There are many excellent ideas for what individual areas should be,” he says. “There is a broad sense that the structure should be simpler. It has been widely proposed that there be fewer areas.”

Unlike existing Core courses, Harvard College courses would likely concentrate on the current state of a particular field than on modes of thought.

“Right now [the Core’s] been focused on ways on thinking. The alternative is have broader courses trying to cover what are the main ideas of twentieth century physics, for example,” says Steven J. Gortler, Goldman professor of computer science and director of undergraduate studies for computer science.

Stanfield Professor of International Peace and Committee on the Core Program member Jeffry Frieden also stresses the importance of foundational knowledge.