After three years of evaluation, Harvard University's core curriculum could undergo major restructuring if a faculty vote occurs this spring. But as Harvard and other peer institutions examine the importance of general education requirements, Dean of the College Paul Armstrong says Brown is taking steps to strengthen arguments in favor of its open curriculum.
Key among these measures is a $100,000 grant the University received from the Teagle Foundation - a New York City-based organization that encourages "broad and intellectually stimulating curricula," according to its online mission statement - to support a working group led by Brown and composed of eight schools with open curricula of various kinds. The working group has been meeting once a month since the beginning of the academic year to produce a "white paper" that articulates the values and goals of an open curriculum. Representatives from the schools, which include Wesleyan University and Amherst College, should have the "white paper" completed by June, Armstrong said.
Armstrong said the project will also develop assessment measures to evaluate the concrete effects of an open curriculum. These will primarily examine the experiences of Brown alums.
"Let's look at what our graduates have actually learned," he said. "Let's look at the learning outcomes that are associated with the values that we have. We say lots of things about what a Brown education does to prepare students for lives of usefulness and reputation. Let's try to formalize that knowledge, assess it and see whether in fact the claims we make are true or not."
Over the past 15 to 20 years, the University has encountered challenges from "conservative educational pundits" that argue "in favor of a core curriculum for reasons that are contrary to values that I hold as an educator and values that inform our curriculum at Brown," Armstrong said.
In April 2004, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni issued letter grades to 50 universities and colleges, including all eight Ivy League and Seven Sisters colleges. ACTA, founded by Lynne Cheney, advocates a core curriculum - a series of general courses taken by all students - instead of distribution requirements or an open curriculum like Brown's. In the 2004 report, ACTA identified seven subjects vital to a contemporary liberal arts education, such as literature, economics and mathematics, and surveyed schools to determine if broad courses in the seven fields were required or were merely offerings within a distribution. Brown received an F. No Ivy League school received higher than a C.
ACTA President Anne Neal commended Brown for openly advertising what it does and does not offer, unlike other institutions that claim to have a core curriculum but in reality only mandate distribution requirements. Still, Neal maintains that the University's curriculum does students a disservice.
"It's important to structure a curriculum so that students have exposure to broad areas of knowledge," she said. "When you have a core curriculum and some of the same books are being read by everyone, it gives a foundation for discussion that can be quite exciting."
The report, titled "The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum," didn't even "make a ripple" at Brown, according to Luther Spoehr, lecturer in education and vice chair of the College Curriculum Council. Armstrong agreed, calling the study "predictable."
"This was just the latest, and in some ways not the most interesting, in a series of statements about the values of a core curriculum as opposed to an open curriculum," he said.
Armstrong said, however, that the report has a degree of importance because it reveals the myths and misconceptions about Brown's curriculum, namely that it lacks rigor and educational values. He added that advocates of open curricula have done a poor job making their case in the debate about how a liberal arts education should be defined. That debate, he said, is currently impoverished, underscoring the need for Brown and other like-minded schools to bolster their defense of open curricula.
Both Spoehr and Armstrong see little reason to revamp Brown's curriculum. Armstrong said the CCC regularly reviews the values of the curriculum and the way they are implemented, but he added that he does not anticipate any major curricular reform in Brown's future.
Armstrong said a fundamental question in the core curriculum debate concerns the kind of society educators think students should be prepared to enter.
"The people who believe in a core curriculum worry that cultural differences within the United States are going to tear the country apart, so we need to have a common set of values and beliefs that are going to unite us," he said. "That is too narrow and limiting a view of the world. An open curriculum gives students equipment for living in a world of difference. It imagines a different kind of community not based on everybody believing the same thing or being part of the same tradition, but a community where our differences can contribute to a more exciting world."
