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...fair, the media has somewhat distorted the semantics of “reason and faith” by portraying the requirement as a religious apology. It is not. No course required will focus on eulogizing the Holy Trinity or touting the wonders of enlightenment and nirvana. The Task Force on General Education merely considers religion an important facet of the world that “Harvard’s graduates will confront in their lives both in and after college” and wants to help students “understand the interplay between religious and secular institutions, practices...
Creating a solitary requirement to mandate the study of such a personal and sensitive topic is counterproductive despite the Task Force’s best intentions of trying to encourage students “to become more self-conscious about their own beliefs and values” and “to become more informed and reflective citizens.” It will only generate controversy about whether it should be studied, taking away from its educational value and turning a well-intentioned requirement into a hoop for students to jump through...
...that “reason and faith” need not be included as a separate “area of inquiry and experience.” Existing courses in religion can already find a comfortable niche in one or more of the other categories delineated by the Task Force, such as “Cultural Traditions and Cultural Change” or “The United States and the World: Historical and Global Perspectives...
...recommend “reason and faith” as a general education requirement was a bold decision, and the Task Force’s commitment to innovation should be commended. But Harvard’s desire to follow in the footsteps of past curricular reviews by assuming the role of the gallant knight crusading into uncharted territory has gone too far. The Faculty should replace “reason and faith” with something more sensible...
Decades from now, some Crimson columnist may look back on last week as one of the most significant in the history of undergraduate education at Harvard. The Preliminary Report of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Task Force on General Education, released last Wednesday, charts a radically different course from its predecessors. Designed to prepare undergraduates for membership in contemporary global society, the proposed program would discard the Core Curriculum’s once-revolutionary “modes of inquiry” approach, while continuing to require undergraduates to take a prescribed number of courses...