Independence and self-sufficiency at Harvard: An essay from a world we have lost
Bits and Pieces 2019-06-12
Summary:
In the course of mourning the death of the Bureau of Study Counsel, and with it the extirpation of any sense that the personal development of students was (except in its clinical manifestations) a matter in which Harvard might need some professional expertise, I was reminded of the report of the Dean of Harvard College from 1983–84, reproduced in full below. It has a good section on the Bureau, quoting from its founder Bill Perry, but more importantly, it puts the Bureau's work in the larger context of Harvard's role in educating students to take responsibility for their own lives, with all the tensions that educational process carries with it.
It's also just a lovely essay. It is hard not to smirk at the idea of "the College's withdrawal … from a regulatory role in students' social lives," given that the College now prescribes what kinds of private clubs students may honorably join. And it probably has a few other anachronisms. But the very idea that the dean would write such a thoughtful report to the President -- and thus to the entire University community -- seems sadly anachronistic in itself. Compare this to the announcement, via a Gazette story, of the shutdown of the Bureau. Added evening of June 11: Read the comment by retired BSC counselor Ann Fleck-Henderson on the Harvard Magazine story, correcting Harvard's official explanation of the Bureau.
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To the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences:
Sir --I have the honor to present a report on Harvard College for 1983-84.
I should like to consider in this report the topics of independence and self-sufficiency in the College.
The College has long been more concerned with the intellectual growth of its students, and the development of their capacity to think for themselves, than with inculcating information. Over the years, of course, there has been evolution both in the ways in which that broad objective has been understood and in the ways in which it has been expressed.
Yet in the past decade or so some observers have come to feel that the College has become too "neutral' in the advising of students, questioning whether our practices effectively serve our broad educational purposes. I believe this is an opportune moment to reflect on those concerns and to consider what guidance is appropriate and how it might be offered more effectively.
Before taking up those questions, I shall say a little about how the College's thinking has developed over time. Some of the agencies through which the College advises students exemplify our approach particularly well, and have provided us with a useful vocabulary through which to understand it. Finally we shall consider the new expectations of students and others, and how we might respond to them.
The value of independent thinking has long been honored at Harvard. Some of her chroniclers have even recognized it as a goal of the early, provincial College. In this 'century, President Pusey could write: "...never has Harvard tried to teach a single narrow orthodoxy in any field, nor does she now. From the time our first president, Henry Dunster, was dismissed for unorthodoxy, it has been her chief purpose to call men to think for themselves."
It was, however, only in the nineteenth century --when Harvard had become an independent, secular institution --that the curriculum began to require any significant exercise of choice. The introduction of the "elective system" during the presidency of Charles William Eliot (1869-1909) offered students some choice in their courses and more courses from which to choose. Increasingly, didactic methods of teaching were replaced by inductive methods, in the belief that an active process of learning could produce well-educated individuals in a very broad range of disciplines. This shift was one of great significance, and not merely because it expanded the number of fields whose study might be considered part of a liberal education. Students became more active participants in the design and process of their own educations, beginning with their choice of fields and courses to pursue.
In the decades since Eliot's tenure, the belief in the responsibility of individual students which seems so characteristic of the College today has informed many changes. Two major innovations of Eliot's successor, A. Lawrence Lowell (1909-1933), the tutorial system and the Houses, have served to stimulate the independence of students.
At the same time as such changes have extended the responsibility of students for themselves, the College has developed a number of institut