New core de-emphasizes the West

By Morgan E. Hunter

Santa Clara students are by now aware of the sweeping changes being made to the core curriculum, but most have not heard how profound and destructive some of these changes will be. Especially significant is the de-emphasis on the humanities, specifically the Western humanities.

The most noteworthy change is the replacement of the Western culture requirement by a two-part "cultures and ideas" sequence.

According to the new core's description, the latter must not deal predominantly with the West, and indeed need not feature classes teaching it exclusively as an individual subject.

More broadly, the humanities as a whole are neglected by this new core. The ever-increasing number of required courses concern themselves primarily with the social sciences, and exclusive history, literature and philosophy courses, Western or other, will no longer be accepted as a "cultures and ideas" requirement. As always, the requirements reflect the true priorities: Diversity is required, Western culture and humanities are optional.

Western Culture in the new core is clearly a watered down version of the specific requirement that I and many others would like to see in it. But why do I and why should anyone care about this? Why is the teaching of the Western liberal arts -- the humanities -- so particularly important?

First, Western culture is our culture, and it provides the background against which we Americans live our lives. How can we hope to understand other cultures without a thorough understanding of our own?

When I asked William Prior, a philosophy professor, to describe his thoughts about the new core curriculum, he provided a justification for Western culture courses. "For 2,500 years or more, students seeking a liberal education in the West found it in the classics of ancient Greece and Rome," he said.

"The Western culture sequences at Santa Clara were a pale shadow of that curriculum, but they did represent it," he said.

Most importantly, for Santa Clara in particular, is the impact of the new core on the learning community that a Jesuit university creates.

The intellectual and moral tradition upon which the Jesuit order is built is inextricably associated with its origin in Western history, and the Jesuits have been dedicated for 450 years not only to preserving but to spreading one key component of that culture -- Catholic philosophy -- through education. I find it particularly depressing to see our institution, founded by men devoted to that culture, fall prey to the contemporary rejection of it.

Clearly, the majority of the faculty agreed with this assessment, as a majority voted against the new core as it was proposed and is now being implemented. In fact, the voting procedure used reveals that it was implemented largely without faculty input, and to a certain extent without their consent.

According to the final report of the core curriculum revision committee, published in May 2007, when a vote was taken, the faculty was offered several choices for responding to the package of changes. They could vote "yes" to the whole core, "yes with reservations" about certain changes -- which they were invited to describe -- or "no."

The results were hardly enthusiastic. Roughly 40 percent responded "yes" and roughly 40 percent responded "no," while 20 percent responded "yes with reservations."

The report stated that the comments associated with those who had reservations "varied widely," so no changes were made to the proposal, and all these votes were simply counted as "yes" to the current proposal, and it was triumphantly announced as passing by a 60-40 percent margin.

This is incredible. One could very easily argue that the 20 percent who voted "yes with reservations" meant "no, not without these changes," and conclude that the new core was rejected by that 60-40 percent margin.

Professor Michael Meyer of the philosophy department told me that because of the voting procedure, "faculty support for the new core was never as strong as it seemed at the time it passed. Faculty support has diminished since then, as quite a few 'yes with reservations' votes have become a strong 'no.' Since the vote, many more faculty now see the old core as superior."

Clearly, the voting procedure was flawed. If California referenda were voted like this, they would always pass. The deck was stacked the first time, and the new core should be reconsidered.

Morgan E. Hunter is a sophomore classics major.