University of Virginia Library

Moore Discusses Faculty Curriculum Efforts

—Ed.

Several people have criticized
the proposal of the Curriculum
Committee because it does not spell
out the principles which guided the
discussion. That they are not so
spelled out does not mean that they
did not exist, although I am the
first to say that they were largely
tacit. In fact, we spent considerable
time discussing the purpose of
undergraduate education at
Virginia, the principles that
underlie a liberal education, and so
forth - the things which would lie
at the heart of a statement of
guiding principles. During this
discussion, two things became clear;
these things led to general
agreement that we would proceed
without trying to specify detailed
guidelines. These two observations
are germane to any discussion of
the problem of the philosophy of
the propd. We found first that
we could reach agreement on
general principles only in broadest
outline, and second, there is no way
objectively to test whether a
curriculum meets a set of
objectives.

We could not reach agreement
on a detailed set of principles
because everyone has his beliefs
about what is important in a liberal
arts education. These ideas have
changed and are changing: the
trivium is the ideal now
only to persons in the
General literacy would
to be an important goal, but
many people think that it is less
important than preparing the
student to make a "healthy" social
adjustment. There is disagreement
about whether undergraduate
education should be broad and
general, a base from which the
student can build later, or rather
merely preparation for
specialization at the graduate level.
the university the repository and
transmitter of accumulated
knowledge, as some would argue?
Or should it be an instrument of
sweeping social change? These
views are seriously held by
and vocal people, and
design of the curriculum would
affected by acceptance of any
of them as a guide. But this
university is a pluralistic
if it were not, a single
view could be adopted and a
curriculum designed which would
suit that general principle. It is not
autocracy, but rather a place
where individuals seek knowledge
largely according to their own
lights.

Thus, even if a general objective
could have been spelled out which
would have been acceptable to the
majority of the faculty, it would
have been so vague that it could not
have provided detailed guidance for
decision on each of the concrete
aspects of the proposal. To have
such guidelines would require that
they be highly detailed; to arrive at
such a set of guidelines would have
engaged us in precisely the kind of
debate that we shall be having in
the next days. In its details, such a
set of principles is asking things like
whether the study of, say,
sociology is as important to the
liberal education as, for example,
art. And that is the reason that we
are having the delegate we are now
having — precisely because there is
no general agreement on such
questions. Thus, we were led to the
conclusion that any attempt to set
up a general set of principles to
guide the design of the curriculum
would be futile.

This is not to say that evaluation
of the curriculum is impossible, but
it seems fairly obvious that
evaluation of the curriculum is,
ultimately, a subjective matter; we
can agree on neither a detailed set
of objectives nor an objective
means of testing whether a
curriculum is meeting general
objectives. And surely observation
suggests that this is the case.
Chicago moved from the rigidity of
the Hutchins curriculum to the
much less restrictive curriculum it
now has, and it was still staffed by
reasonable people. Today we see
Stanford moving in the direction of
extreme liberalism in its
curriculum, along with schools like
Barat College, but we also observe
Carnegie-Mellon University
instituting a liberal arts college
which has a highly structured
curriculum.

If this is so, if we can't
objectively tell whether the
curriculum is meeting some set of
goals, then it is also true that we
cannot objectively tell that it is not
doing so. Then the very logical
question is why change? Another
observation enters: education is a
two-way process, and the other end
from ours is the students. Their
attitudes are one way (and I stress
the "one") of determining whether
our curriculum is achieving its
purposes. If we are proposing
change now, perhaps it is because
our students, in their newly critical
attitude, have raised long dormant
questions to which the old answers
now strike us as imperfect. This is
not to say that students should
determine the curriculum; that is
our responsibility and to give it up
would be to shirk a major duty. But
students have ideas and valid
criticisms of what we are doing; the
discontent we are presently
witnessing has many, deep, and
varied roots, but the criticisms
leveled at the curriculum by
students are not invalid simply
because of that

All of this doesn't carry me very
far to a set of principles. In faculty
meetings to date, some of our
Committee members have suggested
some of the principles that did
guide us. I think that the
Committee members were in broad
agreement that we wanted to
provide students opportunity to
pursue educational ends shaped to a
greater extent by themselves. This,
it will be recognized, places the
prime responsibility for excellence
in education where it really
belongs: on individual faculty
members and students. Why did we
choose this principle? First, because
of the view that we wanted to
encourage diversity in our
graduates, not produce stereotypes.
It was our belief that a major
component of the liberal education
is the stimulation of intellectual
interest and critical ability. We were
persuaded that this end is not well
served by required courses, and that
students were more likely to be
challenged and interested by
courses that they themselves chose.
So, the broad principle of freedom
from coercion in the curriculum
was adopted. Why, then, not make
it complete? Why have any
requirements, other than a total
course requirement? Total anarchy
was rejected on the ground that we
wanted to insure that students
sampled a number of types of
inquiry; hence, the area
requirements. This, we thought,
combined the principle of freedom
from coercion with that of insuring
sampling of broad areas of
knowledge.

Whether these areas are the ones
appropriate to a liberal arts
education and whether the
distributions suggested by the
Committee are the correct ones is a
matter for this body to debate and
decide. They represent the result of
thinking about the question by the
Committee members over a period
of a year, but, as I have tried to
suggest, it is in precisely this area,
that of specifying in detail what the
liberal education should
incorporate, that men of reason
may differ.

There were also some specific
principles which guided the
organization of the area
requirements. First, we wanted to
insure that students sample courses
incorporating different ways of
viewing man's environment.
Second, and this is so closely
related to the first that the divisions
work out almost identically, we
wanted students to sample different
modes of thinking about problems:
different methodologies, if you
like. So, we have the humanities,
including the artistic view and
method, communicative skills, and
philosophy. I might note here that
the relative paucity of resources
now extant at the University
prevented our adopting an early
suggestion for a separate area for
the Fine Arts. Second, we have the
social studies area, giving a view of
the world from the social science
methodology and from a
particularly Western point of view.
Third, the sciences and
mathematics area introduces the
student to the view of the
environment taken by the sciences
and to their methodology. Fourth,
the foreign language and culture
area was to provide a view of the
social environment from a
distinctly foreign point of view.

I should elaborate on this, in
view of its controversial nature. The
view taken by the Committee was
that the major virtue of the study
of foreign language by
undergraduates was that of
introducing them to a foreign
culture, rather than providing them
with a tool. This was indicated to
us by the fact that the terminal
courses in the basic sequence are
literature courses, and was
enhanced by some wondering
whether the average student
attained a working knowledge of
the language as a tool at the end of
his sequence in foreign languages.
The foreign culture alternative is
consistent with the view of
language study as a cultural
experience. If, on the other hand,
the purpose of language study is to
provide the student with a tool, the
foreign culture alternative does not
make sense. If that be the case,
however, it is necessary to argue
that the foreign language tool is
more important than, say, the
statistics, the mathematics, or the
economics tool. In any event, the
view taken is one on which we may
differ as reasonable persons, and is
a matter for this body to decide.

Finally, English 1 is included
because a basic command of the
native language was regarded by all
as essential to the liberal arts
education.