Below are those responses I've received from alumni regarding my proposal which I've been given permission to make public. The order of appearance of responses is the order in which they were originally received (some were later edited or amended by the respective authors).
Alumni names appearing in this color and with an asterisk are alumni who have chosen to endorse this propsal regardless of any reservations or complaints. Alumni names appearing in this color are alumni who have chosen not to endorse the proposal, regardless of any positive comments they might make.
Very nice work. It's clear to me that you've thought about this quite a lot, and not just tried to apply a "quick fix". I believe your focus on the college's mission statement is a strong central point of your proposal.
Please add me to the list of signatories. I'm particularly ecstatic about a proposed alteration of Hum 1 and 2, as I have notably bad memories of the uselessness of these courses when I took them. A senior seminar in ethics is such an obvious idea that I am astonished at its absence in the current Mudd curriculum.
I am particularly in favor of a major-specific ethics course.
I am not convinced that the existing HMC HumSoc system is deeply flawed or in desperate need of change. However, the general principles of this proposal (particularly ideas such as the major-specific ethics class and STS elements in Hum 2) could be very beneficial for the college, and I would love to see it discussed among faculty, alumni, and current students.
The only element of this proposal that really troubles me is the tremendous focus on writing suggested for first year HumSoc courses: no students would be happy if forced to take a "Junior High style" English course, even if they might benefit from one. I dislike the idea of a Hum 2 portfolio, and I think it's important that Hum 1 courses have sufficient time for class discussion and for exploration of topics beyond the mechanics of English composition.
On the whole, I have high hopes that this proposal may lead to an even better Harvey Mudd experience.
I think that this is an idea whose time has come. It expands the "Integrative experience" from one class to a system which may just integrate itself into the students' thought processes.
It seems to me that the Integrative Experience really is pretty much the same as the STS elective you would be requiring. However, an ethics course of any sort is a very good idea, so I think this is worth pursuing.
Mostly what I object to is that you are basically requiring people to have a concentration in STS, which you say yourself: "The Integrative Experience will therefore be a fourth STS-themed course taken by the student, completing a Concentration of sorts in STS."
I don't object to a discipline-specific STS course available, which I thought we should have all along (I was surprised when I arrived at Mudd that we didn't, as I thought our Mission Statement pretty much mandated that such a course exist). I think that is a very good idea, one that I'm really surprised hasn't been suggested before. However, I think your ideas for Hum 1 are pretty terrible. I think the answer is not to separate the "qualified students" from those who are unable to write, but to change Hum 1 so that it works for all levels of writers. That will damage everyone. I don't believe there is such an easy parallel between what the biology department does and what the hum department should do. Many people who were, in High school, considered good writers, find they have a lot of work to do when they get to college. The way Hum 1 is structured right now, I don't think anyone gets much help, but I don't think the class should be separated into regular and "honors" sections!
Having hum 2 as an STS course is fine. I think that could work well, only then I think the other required STS courses you propose should be dropped. I think that getting every student to think early on about STS issues will motivate them later on to think voluntarily about the societal impact of their science. It is overkill to require so many STS courses. Offer them, yes. Require them, no. If Hum 2 is an STS course, it should attempt to motivate the students to care about the moral/ethical dimension of science independently.
So, I guess those are my concerns. I think that some of these recommendations are good, and deserve to be taken very seriously, but I don't think requirements are the way to fulfill the mission statement. I think that requiring everyone to study STS will make it a joke. The people who would have taken such classes anyway will be fine with it, and the people who wouldn't take it anyway will hate it an never want to think about it again. So, again: Do offer these classes, but do not require them.
I like the idea of incorporating STS more deeply into the curriculm. As long as there are sufficient offerings, it seems to make sense that Mudders should take these courses.
The major-specific ethics course is an interesting idea. I'm not sure if it's necessary to separate the majors, but a mandatory ethics course is certainly consistent with our mission.
I agree that a stronger focus on STS would better satisfy the college's stated goal of teaching its students to recognize the impact of their work on society. My only complaint with this proposal is that it significantly reduces the distribution requirement. Part of what sets Mudd apart from other technical schools is the fact that students are forced to attend courses in at least six different non-technical fields. My concerns would be mitigated somewhat if the proposal clearly stated that additional ethics and STS courses (that is, beyond those required by the proposal) would not count towards distribution requirements, only concentration requirements. That way, students would still be taking courses in five different areas (ethics, STS, and one each from the three current groupings). Right now, it seems that only STS courses fall under that restriction, not ethics courses.
As a student passionate about the humanities (and currently an MA candidate in Classics), I had two major problems with my Harvey Mudd humanities experience.
First, Hum 1. As students' first exposure to both the Mudd faculty and the Mudd commitment to the humanities, these should be positive experiences, promoting intellectual respect for and positive involvement with the humanities. By contrast, many, perhaps most, people seem to have a bad experience in Hum 1. Though it is ostensibly a writing course, poor writers do not develop strong skills; strong writers are frustrated that they learn nothing (and that this is the single element of the freshman core which cannot be passed out of under any standard). People learn to associate humanities courses with unhappiness and contempt -- not exactly a successful outcome! Furthermore, since Hum 1 is frequently taught by graduate students from CMS, many of whom are underwhelming, students do not get that first-semester exposure to the humanities faculty, who (from my experience and those of my friends) seem to be uniformly talented. Hum 1 could be a strong vehicle for exposing students to that talent, to faculty research interests and intellectual dynamism; it could be a strong vehicle for developing writing skills, or passion for and knowledge of the humanities; instead, nearly everyone hates it.
Second, intellectual dilettantism. As admirable as the goal of both breadth and depth is, it simply cannot be achieved in twelve courses the way it can be in the overall college requirements. Students find themselves choosing humanities classes, not on the basis of their interests or intellectual development, but based on what few courses both fit their schedule and meet the requirement du jour. The strong emphasis on distribution courses forces students to take many low-level courses; they have little time remaining to take the upper-level courses for which these may be prerequisites, concentration requirement notwithstanding. The student who is truly passionate about one or two areas of the humanities is forced to overload, to forego the depth and breadth customary in the field in favor of that forced by the college, or to creatively represent their class schedule in order to pursue that passion. I was lucky in that my passion, classics, is highly interdisciplinary and allowed me to satisfy many distribution requirements by choosing usefully cross-listed courses; however, the Mudd requirements forced me to pursue a watered-down classical civilization major instead of the rigorous classical philology major I really wanted. When I decided I wanted to go to graduate school, I had to spend a year taking fundamental courses which the distribution requirements had not allowed me to take. If what Mudd wants is engineers and scientists who are superficially educated in the humanities, so be it, but that is not what its publicity or its student body led me to believe; if Mudd wants to produce scientists and engineers who are also true humanities scholars, it must cease forcing dilettantism upon them.
The funny -- and perhaps sad -- thing about this is that nearly everyone I knew at Mudd cared deeply about at least one aspect of the humanities or social sciences; many were attracted to the school precisely because it was the unique technical school which would allow them such non-technical pursuits; many are considering graduate work in the humanities. That the students bring such goodwill and interest to the process, that the faculty are so talented, and that nonetheless many of us are disapponted in our Harvey Mudd humanities experience, says to me that something has gone wrong.
While Itai's proposal is not perhaps the one I would have written, and while it would not have been optimally geared toward me and my interests when I was an undergraduate, I think it tries hard and fairly to consider both of these points within the context of the college's overall mission. Furthermore, it does the most important thing, which many of us have been reluctant to do: it strives to get the question on the table. The Mudd humanities requirements need a full and open airing, a dialogue of students and faculty, to determine what humanities requirements can best produce engineers and scientists who are also humanists and humanities scholars, capable, as we should like, of judging the impact of their work in the world, passionate about words as well as numbers.
Click here to see the names of all the signatories.
Click here to return the HumSoc Proposal Homepage.