To the Editor:
I note with nostalgia the passing of Modes of Thought courses. By way of eulogy, I offer this account of my experience with an MOT course that I took in 1972 during the second semester of my first year.
I can't remember what the catalogue labeled the course, but it covered topics in American constitutional history and required two extensive research papers. The professor said he saw the MOT program as an opportunity to teach issues in constitutional history, a subject he would not otherwise teach because it was not considered part of a modern political science curriculum.
Squeezed out during the behavioral revolution in political science, constitutional history had found no home elsewhere in the undergraduate curriculum.
The MOT program provided a format in which the professor was willing to teach a subject that he thought important, but many others thought applied an outmoded method of analysis to material not deserving coverage in the undergraduate curriculum. By doing so, the program performed a most valuable service.
First, that MOT course sparked my lifelong interest in constitutional history and an academic career that includes scholarship and teaching in the subject. Second, judgments about the methods of analysis and subject matter appropriate for undergraduates can be ephemeral; I had the privilege to teach constitutional history at Brown when I taught in the Center for Law and Liberal Education between 1979 and 1982.
Lastly, rigorous analysis of interesting questions produces an excellent education despite its fit with prevailing views about scholarly priorities.
Although nostalgic, I'm pleased to see that the demise of MOT courses may affect the curriculum's form rather than substance since first-year seminars offer similar opportunities to professors and students. In fact, the seminar program represents an improvement by allowing professors to get teaching credit.
Expecting professors to teach MOT courses without credit was always unrealistic, and my professor never taught the course that had such an impact on me again after I took it. Whatever the program's name or structure, I hope that Brown always allows its faculty an outlet for teaching whatever they are passionate about and, by that, inspire similar passion in their students.
James Kainen '75
Apr. 15
