<p>Let me put in my two cents worth if I may on the subject of Core Curriculums and Distribution requirements.</p>
<p>The earliest colleges in America had uniform - indeed, rigid - curricula. </p>
<p>Learning was in the traditional classical mode. There were no electives; every student took the same set of courses. The purposes were to train civic leaders and educated clergymen, and the prevailing view was that there was one and only one way to do that. This lasted for considerably more than a century. </p>
<p>But in the first part of the 19th century, demand for more practical education led to gradual change in college curricula. Practical subjects were added, and colleges began to allow students to take electives. The once-rigid curriculum was broken down. </p>
<p>This trend accelerated after the Civil War, especially with the development of the land grant colleges following the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862. But the electives movement got out of hand with a wild proliferation of courses (sounds a bit like customization). By the end of the century, curricula had lost their coherence and the wide availability of electives had resulted in OVER-SPECIALIZATION.</p>
<p>And so there was a reaction in the 20th century. Two lines of reform were followed. </p>
<p>1) First was the concept of the major with additional distribution requirements. The idea was that the distribution requirements would satisfy the need for breadth in the program, while the major would create depth of learning in at least one subject. Distribution requirements usually insist that a student take a certain number of courses from a variety of disciplines. </p>
<p>For example, at certain Christian Colleges ( e.g. Grove City, Wheaton, Thomas Aquinas, Francisan College at Steubenville) , and even colleges like Hillsdale, no matter what his or her major, a student must take several semester hours of laboratory science. </p>
<p>2) The second was the idea of the general education requirement, which was intended to provide every student with something like the FOUNDATION in liberal learning that had once been at the heart of the classical curriculum.</p>
<p>Again as an example, all students at the above mentioned colleges as I learned from some professors I know there, must take a series of humanities courses which introduce them to the seminal ideas of Western Civilization. Why Western ? because their reasoning is that WESTERN IDEAS ( e.g. those formed in the Rennaisance and the Enlightenment ) were the BACKBONE for the founding principles of the United States. You UNDERSTAND Civics and Understand the foundation of this country by UNDERSTANDING THE IDEAS THAT UNDERGIRD THEM. </p>
<p>It is no wonder that those colleges that have strong core curriculums always come out on top in terms of civics knowledge. This has been shown for two consecutive years by a study made by the ISI in conjunction with the University of Connecticut. See here :</p>
<p>Civic</a> Literacy Report - Rankings</p>
<p>As for this endangering colleges into harboring a parochial view that only the west has contributed to good ideas, that's NONSENSE.</p>
<p>These core curriculums ALSO study Eastern and Worldwide ideas but CONTRAST them to Western ideas and in classroom discussions and exchanges, attempt to investigate why Western ideas came to prevail in the 19th and 20th century instead of eastern ones. Why for instance, do most modern inventions and scientific discoveries come from the west ? Questions like these are discussed and debated in class with no fear or favor for one culture over the other as long as objective discussions are respected.</p>
<p>Both of these reforms, distribution requirements and general education requirements, have survived in various forms to the present.</p>
<p>There was an additional hiccup, recent enough that I lived through it myself. Many of you will recall the student unrest at the time of the Vietnam War and the pressures to revise college curricula that came with that. One main thrust was to eliminate or greatly reduce the number of required courses, to allow the students much more latitude in planning their programs. </p>
<p>This harks back, of course, to the ELECTIVES MOVEMENT of the 19th century and it had some of the same results - incoherence in the curriculum, over-specialization, poorly educated students as far as liberal learning was concerned. Since then, there has been some reaction to what came to be known as the "cafeteria approach" to higher education, with the emergence of core curricula and the like. Now, however, we are told that the pendulum is swinging back again, toward fewer requirements and more choice.</p>
<p>So, what do I think is the outlook for the future ?</p>
<p>Dealing with these demands will be a problem for us all. But even though this looks like more of the same, of history repeating itself, there is, I think, something different this time around. The pressure for customization is coming not from a demand for more practical education, as it did in the 19th century, although there are steady pressures for vocationalism in our colleges and universities. Even the programs of that period of the development of electives had some coherence. Customization did not extend to the individual student; the electives were designed to meet some reasonably well-defined and well-recognized need. Nor does the demand emanate from the rejection of authority by students strongly opposed to an unpopular war, as it did about Vietnam in the 1960s ( older folks will remember the chant --- HEY HEY HO HO, WESTERN CIVS HAS GOTTA GO !! ).</p>
<p>Now, it seems to me, the pressure for customization is rooted in changing social mores and the personal experiences of our young people.</p>
<p>That is one difference. The other difference is that the kind of customization that the keynoter had in mind is more feasible now due to the technological advances of the last decade. Certainly it is far easier now to share resources among institutions, to permit students to take courses that are produced at other colleges, even to put together courses that they themselves design. And this is happening. In many instances, it is developing not because of the demand for customization, but simply to take advantage of economies that can be had by collaboration. The teaching of foreign languages with small demand by internet is one example. The sharing of costly scientific instrumentation, using remote access, is another opportunity. And this will undoubtedly grow.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it is virtually certain that schools will, in fact, cater to the demands of the Burger King generation. </p>
<p>They will have little choice in the matter if they wish to compete, to survive. Even so, the extent of individualized study will always be limited by cost. It has been in the past, and what we see today reflects in part the reductions in costs that have occurred as the result of the technological revolution.</p>
<p>So the future of higher education will be shaped in part by these two factors - </p>
<p>1) the lower costs of personalized instructional programs; and
2) the growing demand for them. </p>
<p>Cost reductions due to technological change appear to be inevitable and generally desirable. It is the changes on the demand side - or, more accurately, what those changes reflect about American society and its future - that are of deeper concern.</p>
<p>Here I make reference to a new study of the history of the 20th century by a someone at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, the esteemed historian, Robert Conquest. </p>
<p>The book is called Reflections on a Ravaged Century, and it's well worth reading. In it, Conquest looks back on the bloody century just concluded and attempts to understand the root causes of its catastrophes - the two world wars, fascism, communism. What does he find? For Conquest, it is fanatical dedication to an idea, an ideology whose adherents brook no dissension, that is at the root of the world's suffering during the century.</p>
<p>If intolerant, fanatical dedication to a single idea has been the cause of these sufferings, the flip side is that a democratic and free society must be tolerant and pluralist - but that pluralism MUST REST ON A SOLID CONSENSUS.</p>
<p>Conquest argues that such consensus preceded British democracy and that it could not have been otherwise. The same was true for America - consensus on the nature of the society existed before the Constitution, indeed before the Revolution. The Federalist Papers can be seen as an effort to strengthen that consensus by persuading people who had differing economic interests to support the Union. If there is no consensus, democracy is hollow; it may be no more than the dominance of a majority group over the minority, one set of interests in power by election rather than by other means. </p>
<p>We have been able to maintain a consensus regarding the central values of our society for more than two centuries. If the consensus were to break down, the basis for a democracy in which the rights of minorities are protected against the tyranny of the majority could be lost. What is this consensus? What is its basis?</p>
<p>This is not the time for political philosophy and I am not a philosopher. But I think we would all agree that our nation is built on the ideals of FREEDOM. </p>
<p>Surely it is dedication to those ideals that led our forefathers to come to this land, that was responsible for the War of Independence, that was at the heart of the Constitution, that has been the central principle governing our political life ever since. And, in a sense, the Burger King society reflects an element of this notion: that we are free to do what we want, as long as what we do doesn't interfere with the freedoms of others. </p>
<p>But there is something more to be said. Our ideas about freedom are - and were at the Founding - ROOTED IN SOMETHING DEEPER. </p>
<p>At base, they are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition and its central values. Whether we like it or not IT IS WHAT IT IS. Now some inthis forum who read this might be turned off by this statement, but YOU CAN'T CHANGE HISTORY and no amount of ignoring it is going to change that fact.</p>
<p>It is in that tradition that the value of the individual human being is most strongly expressed, that the relationship between the person and the Creator is understood, that the basis for thinking that every individual is important is laid down. Without that, there is no basis for arguing that individual freedom matters.</p>
<p>For that reason, it is crucial that the consensus about the great tradition that is at the heart of our freedom be maintained. Until fairly recently, the elements of the tradition could be taught in the schools. The values connected with the Judeo-Christian tradition, if not the religious practices themselves, were emphasized. But few of our public schools can deal with these topics any longer, as we all know.</p>
<p>Nor are these things popular in higher education. Quite the contrary. Much of higher education seems dedicated to destroying these ideas, to convincing students that all values are relative, that none stands ahead of others, that it's all a matter of choice, which is, perhaps, the most malevolent manifestation of the Burger King society.</p>
<p>So, if we want college students to understand the foundation of the United States of America, I can't see why taking a core curriculum that views the great writers, philosophers, artists, historical developments and other elements of the liberal education can be bad or obsolete. </p>
<p>What's wrong with giving college students an education that provides a solid understanding not only of freedom itself but also of its fundamental sources and rationale ?</p>
<p>I believe that a core curriculum that provides future voters with an APPRECIATION of the PHILOSOPHY behind the founding of this country is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL in developing good citizens.</p>
<p>Let's not turn our back on this and support those colleges that strive to have them.</p>