Word: task
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...Task Force on General Education appears to have experienced a crisis of faith. The “reason and faith” requirement, which had been the boldest and most talked about element of the original report, was summarily consigned to whatever afterlife there may be for dead curriculum proposals...
...This is highly unfortunate. Religious illiteracy is the norm at our largely secular campus, making it almost impossible for Harvard to converse with a religious world. Furthermore, forgoing the reason and faith requirement will perhaps irretrievably confirm the pragmatic, utilitarian ethos of the task force’s vision for Harvard education, banishing rigorous thought about meaning, purpose, and life’s ultimate questions to an academic never-never land...
...while the original report did well to address the issue of religious literacy, it unfortunately did so in a spirit of pragmatism and anti-intellectualism. The Task Force’s underlying rationale for general education can be summed up in three words: real-world citizenship. Perhaps reflecting the pragmatic worldview of the task force co-chair and Bass Professor of English and American Literature and Language Louis Menand, they have taken the focus off of academics and directed it instead towards real-life application and civic duty...
...Unfortunately, the task force seems to have forgotten that education is about more than just amassing useful facts. While facts will help students be successful and participate in democracy, a truly liberal education ought to address deeper questions. In that sense, the task force’s real-world citizenship rationale only goes so far. It does not provoke us to think deeply about why we ought to be good citizens, parents, lawyers, artists, or, for that matter, anything...
...enjoyed Stein's tribute to Friedman. Surely, it is a difficult task to write an adequate epitaph for a Nobel prizewinner who had a positive impact on hundreds of millions of people around the world. Friedman defied the political correctness of his day to show that America's unique success was due to its founders' creation of a system that minimized the government and maximized personal and market freedoms. ROGER E. HAUGO Sioux Falls...