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$28 billion, but no room for the Great Books
According to a story in yesterday's Harvard Crimson, the Harvard administration has deferred a plan to institute a Great Books program as an option in the general education curriculum due to a lack of funds. Nearly a dozen professors, the article reports, had been meeting since the fall of 2007 to structure an ambitious and rigorous option for students focused on foundational texts. According to the story, both students and professors had embraced the program idea -- not otherwise offered at the University -- as what history professor David Armitage called "a radical move for students to deploy their intellectual armory." In pleading poverty (notwithstanding an endowment of $28 billion), Harvard administrators have surely illustrated their sorry indifference to a quality undergraduate education. At the same time, they have given alumni one more reason to pay serious attention to the petition candidacies of Robert Freedman and Harvey Silverglate, who are running for the Board of Overseers in the belief that educational excellence should be Harvard's first priority, not its last.
Posted by Noah Mamis on April 24, 2009 at April 24, 2009 01:28 PM
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