http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=516372
New Core Loses 'Faith'
Replacement for religion requirement criticized for being a ‘grab bag’
Published On Wednesday, December 13, 2006 4:48 AM
By LOIS E. BECKETT and EVAN H. JACOBS
Crimson Staff Writers
The task force charged with replacing Harvard’s Core curriculum has
dropped its headline-grabbing proposal for a “Reason and Faith”
requirement—a category that would have made Harvard the only Ivy to
require its undergrads to study religion.
The committeehas also suggested a new course requirement on “what it
means to be a human being,” which some professors at yesterday’s
Faculty meeting criticized as a “grab bag” category.
Students could fulfill this requirement with a course in areas as
varied as evolutionary biology or literature, according to a letter
the Task Force on General Education sent last week to the Faculty of
Arts and Sciences.
While the new “what it means to be a human being” requirement was
debated at length at the Faculty meeting, the “Reason and Faith”
requirement—which received national media attention after it was
unveiled with the task force’s original preliminary report in
October—seemed to die quietly.
In its letter, the eight-member task force explained that “courses
dealing with religion...can be readily accommodated in other
categories.”
For example, the Moral Reasoning category can encompass the “normative
issues concerning what we do and do not have reason to do and
believe,” task force co-chair and Professor of Philosophy Alison
Simmons wrote in an e-mail.
“The other categories can easily accommodate descriptive issues
concerning the social, political and personal roles that religion has
played,” Simmons wrote.Only one speaker at the meeting, Plummer
Professor of Christian Morals Peter J. Gomes, lamented the
requirement’s demise.
He said that the decision to scrap the “Reason and Faith” requirement
was caused by “fears—of Jesuits under beds and priests in every
corner—on the part of our learned and articulate colleagues in the
room.”
“I hope you will have the courage of your original convictions,”
Gomes, who is also Pusey minister in Memorial Church, told the
assembled task force.
“I hope the committee will recover its nerve,” he added.
‘TO BE HUMAN’ BUT NOT HUMANITIES?
The interdisciplinary “what does it mean to be a human being”
requirement emerged from discussions between task force members and
other professors, Simmons wrote in an e-mail.
“Colleagues proposed that we consider a category on human nature,”
Simmons wrote, adding that the question is “one of the most central
questions to be addressed by a liberal arts education.”
“We realize that different disciplines have radically disparate
approaches to that question, and that those disparities are
fascinating in themselves,” she wrote.
The proposal drew significant concern from some Faculty members at
yesterday’s meeting.
Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France Susan R. Suleiman told
the Faculty that the newly-proposed area was far too broad.
“If the aim of a liberal arts education is not to, among other things,
teach us what it means to be human, then I don’t know what it is,” she
said, adding that students should be required to take two courses in
literature and the arts instead.
Professor of History of Art and Architecture Jeffrey F. Hamburger also
criticized the revised report for still giving “short shrift” to the
humanities.
“Out of the 11 courses required, only one must be in the humanities.
Two or three others could but needn’t be,” he said.
While humanities students must take two courses in the sciences,
“students in the sciences or social sciences are not required to
reciprocate,” Hamburger said.
But one professor opposed the humanities professors’ focus on the
tally of science versus humanities requirements in the Gen Ed report.
“[The report] is trying to break down our narrow parochial barriers,”
Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Genetics Andrew Murray said.
Murray also said that professors should not reject the “what does it
mean to be a human being” requirement simply because it could contain
both science and humanities courses.
“This entire division between the categories, the critique that you
can’t mix and match them...is everything that’s wrong with academia,”
Murray said.
Simmons said the task force will release its final recommendations in
January.
IN OTHER BUSINESS
Before discussing the Gen Ed report yesterday, the Faculty approved
three measures by unanimous voice vote.
After approving a nearly-80 page list of courses and instructors for
Harvard Summer School, the Faculty voted to require student
evaluations of all teaching fellows and teaching assistants, even if
their course heads opt out of CUE evaluations.
The Faculty also voted to recommend renaming the Division of
Engineering and Applied Sciences (DEAS).
If the Harvard Corporation approves, DEAS will become known as the
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Dean of Engineering and
Applied Sciences Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti said that the name
change would increase the prominence of engineering at Harvard.
—Staff writer Lois E. Beckett can be reached at
lbeckett@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at
ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.
--
.
|
