Harvard Moves Ahead on Curricular Reform

Parent Cafe
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<p>For those who are interested in curriculum reform and the possible ripple effect on other IHE's: </p>

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...the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University has issued its final report, in which it recommends a new program to replace the Core Curriculum that was introduced in the late 1970s. In the words of the Task Force: “It is Harvard’s mission to help students to lead flourishing and productive lives by providing a general education curriculum that is responsive to the conditions of the twenty-first century. General education is the place where students are brought to understand how everything that we teach in the arts and sciences relates to their lives and to the world that they will confront. General education is the public face of liberal education.”...</p>

<p>it prescribes a set of requirements and calls for a set of extra-departmental courses, rather than advocates that students have free range across existing departmental offerings in the form of an open distribution system. “Since 1945,” the authors state, “the Harvard Faculty has believed in the importance of taking a stand on the question of what students need to learn. General education is a statement about why a liberal education matters.”

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<p><a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/news_and_events/releases/gened_02072007.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/news_and_events/releases/gened_02072007.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/08/harvard%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/08/harvard&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Students' general education requirement would be met by taking a course in each of the following areas:</p>

<pre><code>* Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding

  • Culture and Belief

  • Empirical Reasoning

  • Ethical Reasoning

  • Science of Living Systems

  • Science of the Physical Universe

  • Societies of the World

  • The United States in the World
    </code></pre>

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The report, distributed to the Faculty today, will be discussed at the full FAS faculty meeting on Feb. 13. After that, the faculty will decide on how and when to bring the proposals into legislation, and effect.

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