Word: douthat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...other professors that teach the classes Douthat cites concede that he’s at least right about the lack of breadth in Core classes...
...biggest problem is that these fields have come to almost monopolize the attention of Harvard students, generating a thoroughly anti-academic, anti-intellectual attitude. In a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly called “The Truth About Harvard,” Ross G. Douthat ’02 argues that one of Harvard’s biggest flaws is its failure to provide “a general education, a liberal arts education to future doctors and bankers and lawyers and diplomats.” Douthat has it all backwards. The real failure belongs to the students, many...
...students are only interested in these careers, they should go to Wharton, or some other pre-professional business school. Douthat has missed the point of a liberal arts education. The classes should not be tailored to meet the pre-professional needs of the students. Our classes must set the standard—a high standard of academic enquiry—and students must strive to meet...
Harvard’s Core Curriculum frequently fails to meet this standard and Douthat is right to criticize it. He is wrong, however, to insist that Harvard College become Harvard High. College students—at Harvard or anywhere else—are not babies. This is not high school anymore and students cannot be forced to learn, or to be engaged academically...
...Douthat writes of the wonder he had as a freshman poring over the course catalogue. What he fails to realize is that there are tons of great courses out there—even in the core—but students are simply not taking them. This fall, I took Literature and Arts A-53: “Athens and Jerusalem” as an elective. Eight other undergraduates took the class with me. We rigorously compared the Hebrew Bible to Ancient Greek literature in one of the more enjoyable academic experiences of my Harvard career...