New Harvard Class Requirements Could Include Religion Course

[Zenlitened]

New Harvard Class Requirements Could Include Religion Course

By ZACHARY M. SEWARD (Wall Street Journal)
October 4, 2006 1:15 p.m.

A Harvard University committee charged with revising curriculum proposed that undergraduates be compelled to take a course in religion as part of a new set of course requirements that breaks sharply from the school's peer institutions.

A preliminary report distributed to faculty today recommends scrapping much of the current curriculum in favor of new "general education" requirements spanning the humanities and sciences. The most striking proposals address criticism that Harvard's liberal education fails to adequately prepare students for lives after graduation.

The proposed requirement in religion, dubbed "Reason and Faith," has little parallel in higher education, authors of the report said. It would address topics from personal beliefs to foreign policy to the interplay between science and religion. The report, which calls traditional academics "profoundly secular," seeks to place Harvard's students and faculty in the center of contemporary religious debates.

"I think 30 years ago," when the school's curriculum was last overhauled, "people would have said that religion is not something that everyone needs to know," said Louis Menand, a Harvard professor and co-chairman of the committee that drafted the report. "But today, few would disagree that religion is supremely important to modern life."

Harvard's faculty of arts and sciences will now consider the report, and significant changes could be made before voting on the proposals.

More:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115998049448882599.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

The report... calls traditional academics "profoundly secular"...

And this is bad... why? :shrug:

Or how about the criticism that Harvard's liberal education fails to adequately prepare students for lives after graduation...

Really? I had no idea Harvard grads were struggling so mightily to get by in the world. Truly among the downtrodden, it seems. Should we start up a fund to help them out?

Or would it be more constructive to ask where this "criticism" is coming from? :eyes:

I took several electives during college that would fit into the general topic Harvard is proposing here: a course on the big 3... another on native american beliefs... technology and its effect on society...

And I did it all by my grown-up self. (I'm no Ivy-Leaguer, but I think that's what "elective" kinda means.) Why this should be a required course, I don't know. Because "religion is supremely important to modern life"? I suspect the speaker of that quote and I might arrive at the same conclusion, but for very different reasons.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Fuck religion classes. How about ethics classes for those

Harvard MBAs who would sell our country to the highest bidder?

[xchrom]

3. how about we start graduating FEWER mbas period.

[xchrom]

2. i don't think you can be ''profoundly secular'' when talking

about a curriculum at a college.

of course i'm not sure you can be ''profoundly secular'' at all.

[WCGreen]

4. Remember, Harvard was first and foremost a Divinty School...

[smirkymonkey]

6. Yes but they still have the Divinity School, so why make it a

requirement for undergrads? Leave it as an option if people are interested, but for Harvard to mandate something like this really shows how deep this creeping fundamentalism is affecting all areas of society. Religion is f-ing everywhere these days, and frankly it's creeping me out.

[WCGreen]

8. A comparative religion class should be a part of a Liberal Arts

Education...

I fully support that idea...

A traditional Liberal education should include exposure to a wide variety of subjects...

[nemo137]

11. Everywhere, and taught badly.

I think this may be an effort to remedy the "taught badly" part of that. They can't be teaching pure Christian theology, because that would be no help. A basic world religions course might be better, but still too vague. I don't know about many other places, but at the University of Illinois, Liberal Arts and Sciences undergrads are required to take a western history/philosophy course and a non-western history/philosophy course. Several of the options (and the school is remarkably picky about which courses fill these requirements) are religious or mythological studies, taught from a secular perspective. I'd imagine Harvard's plan to be similar.

[Zenlitened]

16. Oh, I understand. You're right. And if they were saying, "Let's go back...

... to our divinity school roots," that'd be one thing.

But the impression I got was sort of a variation on needs more cowbell*: "We need religion requirements because... well, religion is big, baby!"

Meh. I sure hope they decide to make basic US civics a requirement, too.


* http://www.funnyhub.com/videos/pages/snl-more-cowbell.html

[nemo137]

17. Usually, it is.

Most Liberal Arts programs require some course in US Civics and Politics.

[smirkymonkey]

5. There goes the Ivy League.....

down, down, down...

[silverweb]

7. Without signing up to read the whole article...

I think, on the face of it, this is a good idea.

While academics are and should be secular, a true understanding of people does require an understanding of religion and how it affects them, for better or for worse.

Ignorance in any area of life is a stumbling block. A required course that broadens one's knowledge, understanding, and insight into why people do the things they do can only be a benefit.

I really don't understand why anyone would have a problem with this. I'd actually consider it a form of very practical sociology.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Depends on how wide the curriculum is going to be

If world history, geography, philosophy, politics, psychology, a foreign language, economics, statistics, physics, biology, English literature, public speaking and information technology are all compulsory as well, then maybe it should be in there too. Who knows where people will find time for a speciality, though.

[Bucky]

10. I'm gonna disagree with you.

I can't think of an argument that would mandate religious studies to the status of electives that wouldn't also apply for relegating, say, US History to the same status. The college I went to required 12 hours of theology and 12 hours of Aquinistic philosophy (essentially Catholic teachings) to graduate. I transfered in as a sophomore, so they let me off with 9 hours of each. I'd call that excessive, but one or two courses in religious studies would deepen a student's understanding and reflection on a pretty important topic in life.

It may not be something that most students would find engaging--particularly when we live in a such a secular age--but educating a well rounded person ought to include deepening their sense of cultural heritage adds to a liberal education--even if (or maybe especially because) it involves coursework that a student isn't eager to pursue.

[trotsky]

12. Like you, I agree with the conclusion but have vastly different reasons.

Overall I think it would be a great thing if every child, starting in high school, had to take History of Religion classes so they could see just where religions come from, how they spread, why they split, etc. That way, they might just take a critical eye toward their OWN religion.

[Finder]

13. I think the history of religion is key to understanding history--period...

How can anyone understand the importance of the Enlightenment without understanding the religious climate of that time?

[Zenlitened]

15. Well, I tend to agree. But a well-designed history course...

... in this case a course on the Enlightment... ought to be able to address that with no problem.

It's the Mandatory Religion Course!" tone that I'm getting from the article and the speaker quoted in it that sets my alarm bells ringing.

[Igel]

14. Older 'traditional academics' used to have a religion requirement.

You were exposed to issues beyond simple cause and effect. I've been reading a nifty book that looks at the nature of explanation, and why the 16th century had so many conflicts between secular-leaning scientists and religion-leaning theologians. What is an explanation, and why did one group suddenly change its definition?

The book dates to the 1930s, and the same issues were apparently hot topics among students and intellectuals at the time: Does rationalism have an end, and can it lead to a kind of philosophy that those raised with vaguely religious underpinnings can live with?

And the debate was also raised again in the 1960s. And the '80s. The big question: Not "Why did the Tacoma Narrows Bridge fail?" but "Why are humans to be considered different from other animals, and what are the implications for our behavior, what should motivate us?"

"Love your brother" or "be nice to others" are nice platitudes. But if I think I'm superior to others, why should I be constrained by public opinion? If it says I, a white man, shouldn't marry a black woman, it's wrong; if it says that I, a man, shouldn't have sex with a man, it's wrong. Why should "be nice to others" have any special status? Teenagers ask these questions, esp. when they move away from home.

Universities and colleges provide no answers. They used to.

Moreover, the poster who said history (and literature, to boot) is not understandable except assuming some knowledge of the religion (and culture, frequently merged in practice) was right.