Harvard approves biggest curriculum change in 30 years

Story Highlights
• Overhaul comes after three years of faculty debate
• Eight new required subject areas, including "societies of the world"
• A committee will be appointed to report on how to introduce new curriculum

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- Harvard University on Tuesday approved its biggest curriculum overhaul in three decades, putting new emphasis on sensitive religious and cultural issues, the sciences and overcoming U.S. "parochialism."

The curriculum change, proposed on February 8 after three years of faculty debate, is intended to counter criticism the oldest U.S. institute of higher learning was focused too narrowly on academic topics instead of real-life issues.

One of the eight new required subject areas -- "societies of the world" -- aims to help students overcome U.S. "parochialism" by "acquainting them with the values, customs and institutions that differ from their own," Harvard said.

"This new program is the result of hundreds of hours of lively engagement by the faculty," David Pilbeam, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement.

Pilbeam will appoint a committee that will report back next year on how the new curriculum will be introduced.

An earlier proposal would have made Harvard unique among the elite Ivy League group of long-established Northeastern U.S. universities by requiring undergraduates to study religion as a distinct subject, but that was dropped in December.

The changes to the general-education requirements, imposed on students outside their major areas of study, still address religious beliefs and practices. Study of those issues would be folded into a broader subject of "culture and belief."

The "culture and belief" requirement will "introduce students to ideas, art and religion in the context of the social, political, religious, economic and cross-cultural conditions" that shape them, Harvard said.

Under the changes, science wins greater prominence, including the study of the ethical issues surrounding embryonic stem cell research, which has raised hope for cures for ailments such as Alzheimer's disease, while being opposed by others as an immoral destruction of human life.

Plagiarism -- which rocked Harvard last year when a novel by star undergraduate writer Kaavya Viswanathan was found to have copied passages from another work -- is also addressed.

The curriculum shake-up is the first major overhaul since Harvard formulated its current "core" course requirements in the 1970s. It had been advanced by former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who resigned his post in June after a faculty revolt over his leadership style.

Other new requirements include the study of empirical reasoning, ethical reasoning, the science of living systems, the science of the physical universe, and "aesthetic and interpretive understanding."

Copyright 2007 Reuters.

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