Canon Fodder

By Arthur J. Monaco | Wednesday, May 15, 1996

In the last issue of The Dartmouth Review (TDR 5/1/96), this paper examined the Core Curriculum program at Columbia University. Columbia's Core contains year-long freshman courses on philosophy and literature, and semester long courses on art and music. The principle behind Columbia's Core is to give students a common educational experience, and teach them the history and accomplishments of Western society. Although taught by many different professors, the courses have common syllabi and exams. Following the structure of their freshman year, Columbia students then move on to areas of specialization in their respective majors.

As opposed to the structure of Columbia's freshman curriculum, Dartmouth stresses student choice and personal interest freshman year. Dartmouth students are only required to take two standard classes their freshman year: English 5 and a Freshman Seminar. English 5 has been designed to improve students' writing. Taught by many different professors, the course has no common syllabus or exam. Further, one-third of all students place out of English 5 due to high SAT scores — leaving one common course.

The Freshman Seminar is the only class required of everyone at Dartmouth. It should serve as a freshman's 'common experience.' Freshman Seminars are offered in nearly every academic department at Dartmouth and vary from term to term.

In this arrangement we can see the fundamental difference between Columbia's and Dartmouth's principles of freshman curriculum: while Columbia emphasizes content, Dartmouth is concerned with structure — Columbia hopes to have every freshman conversant in a defined reading list, Dartmouth hopes to improve student writing through flexible syllabi.

Dartmouth's Freshman Seminar is designed to be an intensive writing course. The material itself is of secondary importance; it is a medium by which to teach proper writing and critical thinking. This philosophy allows for the broad range of choice students have in selecting a seminar, which can range in subject from English literature to number theory. The reasoning goes that students will learn best if they take a class that interests them.

Beyond the two freshman requirements, Dartmouth structures its curriculum around a series of distributive requirements — this new distributive system was begun with the '98 class. Students must take two courses of 'Social Analysis' and two courses of 'Natural Science,' along with one course each of 'Arts,' 'Literature,' 'Philosophical or Historical Analysis or Religion,' 'International or Comparative Studies,' 'Quantitative or Deduction Sciences,' and 'Technology or Applied Science.' One of the science courses must have a laboratory component. Among the above distributive requirements, at least one must be within each of three 'World Culture' divisions: 'North American,' 'European,' and 'Non-Western.' Finally, each student before graduation must take one course designated as 'Interdisciplinary.'

Distributive requirements give the Dartmouth student great liberties in shaping his education. For example, the literature requirement can be fulfilled by English 24: Shakespeare I. This course analyzes ten of Shakespeare's plays. Or, the requirement can be fulfilled by Environmental Studies 72: Nature Writers. This course, as described in the Organization, Regulations, and Courses (ORC) course guide, has students 'relate their own experiences in the natural world, and... express their personal vision of it through their papers.'

Different professors will also create different educational experiences. Two different professors can teach the same course from entirely different perspectives, with completely different syllabi. A professor is not obligated to follow the course description from the ORC precisely.

The advising system, which could potentially help students organize and coordinate course schedules, is considered to be a problem at Dartmouth. Students have run for Student Assembly on the platform of 'fix freshman advising.' Many students feel that they are left to make choices alone, and as unexperienced freshmen this can be daunting and haphazard.

Through careful selection, a student can either immerse himself in traditional Western texts, or avoid them entirely. On page nine of this issue, The Dartmouth Review provides an entire four years of study at Dartmouth. In this hypothetical course of study, a student can graduate from Dartmouth having read only one traditional text — in this case Don Quixote.

The argument can be made that 'although it is 'technically' possible to graduate from Dartmouth with little exposure to traditional courses, it does not happen.' Yet a look at course enrollment patterns shows that students are taking non-traditional courses at about the same rate as traditional, 'core' courses. In the fall term of 1994, 25 students took Greek and Roman Studies 1: The Heroic Vision: Epics of Greece and Rome. This course covers Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, as well as Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the same term, 24 students enrolled in Religion 14: 'Women and Religions of Africa.' This course is described in ORC as examining the following questions: 'Why do women synchronize their menstrual cycles?' and 'How did women learn to say NO! to Alpha male harem monopoly?'

Greek and Roman Studies 1 is only offered one term a year. It is the only course in which students are guaranteed to read Homer, Virgil, and Ovid in full, in translation. While some students may also read portions of these texts in Humanities 1, 2, that course is only offered to students who place out of English 5 their freshman fall. Assuming enrollment in GRS 1 remained primarily consistent over the past few years, a 25 student enrollment means that about one thousand Dartmouth students graduate from Dartmouth each year without ever reading these core texts, Classics majors aside. Other comparisons between traditional and non-traditional classes give similar results. In the winter of 1995, 14 students enrolled in Greek and Roman Studies 2: 'The Tragedy and Comedy of Greece and Rome,' while 45 students took Women Studies 10: 'Sex, Gender and Society' last summer. Last winter, 28 students took the College Course 3: 'Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Studies,' while only 6 students are enrolled to take Dante in translation this summer.

A structured curriculum, like Columbia's, forces all students to study Western culture intensively. With distributive requirements, the choice is left up to the student. What's behind a Dartmouth education? More and more, the answer is hard to find.

Canon Fodder

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