Assembly LXI: The Undergraduate Curriculum at Yale
Thursday, October 24 - Saturday, October 26, 2002
Assembly Chair Marc B. Lockhart '84
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John H. Branson '89
Delegate from the Yale Club of Western Maine

Thursday October 24, 2002

This assembly marked the 30th anniversary of the Association of Yale Alumni, which was founded on October 13, 1972. My assembly began on Thursday, October 24th with a luncheon for new delegates in the President's Room in Woolsey hall. New delegates were addressed by AYA executive director Jeffrey Brenzel, who gave an overview of the structure of the AYA and its purposes. The governing body of the AYA is the Board of Governors, a twenty-one member group made up individuals serving 3-year terms. The AYA Assembly consists of 342 delegates serving 3-year terms and representing Yale Clubs, College Classes, and Graduate and Professional Associations. Thirty-three additional individuals are chosen by the Board of Governors to serve as at-large delegates.

1. Introductory Session

All delegates in attendance met in the Levinson Auditorium at the Law School for an introduction to the Assembly. Assembly chair Marc Lockhart introduced the assembly by giving delegates some background about the curriculum review that has been underway at Yale since last fall. Lockhart spoke not only about the task of reviewing the body of knowledge available for formal study at Yale, and the best way to encourage students to explore a variety of disciplines, but also about the importance of assessing the more purely intellectual aspects of a liberal education. Quoting famous language from the late Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti, Lockhart addressed the goal of teaching students to think critically and independently, and to express themselves in speech and in writing with logic, clarity and grace. According to Lockhart, one of the central questions in the context of the current review is what kind of curriculum will best meet the goals of a liberal education as they have been articulated at Yale throughout the years.

Lockhart also touched on a few recent developments at Yale, such as a recent $500 million investment in the sciences, the creation of a Center on Globalization headed up by former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, an increase in the number of international students at Yale and the extension of need-blind admissions and full financial need policies to that group, and a Yale College Programs of Study now containing over 2000 courses to choose from.

Dean Richard Brodhead, who was appointed by President Levin to serve as the chair of the steering committee overseeing the curriculum review, next addressed the delegates. Dean Brodhead began by noting that his committee was cognizant of the fact that the formal education by way of classes and the curriculum was only one aspect of the rich educational experience to which students are exposed at Yale. In addition to the rapid process of intellectual osmosis that is associated with living and dining with extremely bright, independent-minded and articulate students for a period of four years, he noted the important role that extracurricular activities play in encouraging students to work together, organize effectively and participate as citizens in the Yale and New Haven communities in which they find themselves.

Introducing the current curriculum review, Dean Brodhead emphasized that it was not being undertaken because the College had identified any serious problems with curriculum. Rather, he expressed the importance of periodically asking the question, "How can we further enrich the current educational experience at Yale?" He noted that the last comprehensive review of undergraduate education, which was undertaken 30 years ago, was overseen by a committee of 6. The committee overseeing this review consists of 42 people and is divided into four academic working groups: (1) biomedical education; (2) physical sciences and engineering; (3) social and international students; and (4) the humanities and the arts. The committee consists of junior and senior faculty, recent and not-so-recent graduates, and current students. Last spring the committee visited all the various departments within the university to gather information and solicit feedback about what might be done better or differently. The goal was to come up with a diagnosis, develop solutions to problems that may be identified, and devise a way to implement those solutions.

Dean Brodhead remarked that one of the committee's initial tasks was not to come up with the answers, but rather to determine what questions it should asking. He made specific note of several questions the committee believed were important to ask in the context of the review:

1. Noting that Yale College is located in the middle of one of the world's leading universities with rapidly expanding resources, how can we ensure that those resources are open an appropriate degree to Yale College and its students and faculty?



2. How can we sustain and strengthen the culture of individual attention between faculty and students?
   
   
3. Noting that schools like Yale are also the home for people doing advanced research, sometimes in contradiction to the goals of undergraduate education, how can the University balance the sometimes commercially driven research agenda with the academic goals of a liberal education?
   
   
4. How can Yale College: (a) strike a proper balance between specialized classes and classes with breadth; (b) develop and foster more offerings that link specialties together; and
   (c) ensure the availability in the curriculum of courses that are not on the agenda of a particular department at that time?
   
   
5. How can Yale make improve the educational experience for science majors and pre-med students, both by:
1. improving the experience of pre-medical students who spend much of their Yale career on Science Hill (and trudging back and forth) and who, because of extensive pre-med requirements, miss the opportunity to take a large number of courses in a variety of disciplines unrelated to their major;
   
   
2. offering courses in science that are more accessible, attractive and interesting to the non-scientist. (Noting the longstanding trend among students toward choosing science courses with the least amount of science in them as a way of fulfilling their group IV distributional requirement, Dean Brodhead surmised that there must be a better way to expose literature and history majors to science).
   
   
6. How can Yale College best prepare students for life in a world that, globally speaking, is far more interconnected than it was even 20 or 30 years ago? How might opportunities for living and studying abroad, during the summers or the school year, be used as a way of encouraging students to explore another culture while learning a foreign language.
   
   

Finally, Dean Brodhead commented on the relationship between the size of the curriculum (in terms of courses and programs of study available) and the coherence of the curriculum as a whole. Although there are far more courses offered at Yale today than 100 years ago, there is a less coherent sense of what constitutes a Yale College education. Dean Brodhead posed the bold and perhaps controversial question of whether today's students at Yale have too much freedom, too many choices, in the context of course selection. Dean Brodhead observed the natural tendency of students often tend to shy away from courses or fields of study which they think are the most difficult and/or the least pleasurable, toward those courses which they think might be fun, easy or entertaining. When this tendency is combined with an ever expanding curriculum and the large number of electives that Yale students may take, the task of ensuring cohesion and a sense of purpose grows more difficult.

While Dean Brodhead noted, in light of these observations, that the committee was considering ways to instill more rigor and cohesiveness in the undergraduate curriculum, he emphasized that this task cannot be accomplished solely through University dictation, for several reasons:

1. there is a much larger body of information today than there once was, making it difficult for the University to insist that one field or body of knowledge is more important than another;
2. regulations can have the effect of trivializing the requirement;
3. education is not simply a matter of acquiring knowledge or filling the mind, but rather of developing intellectual skills than can be attained in a vast number of different academic contexts.
   
   

Dean Brodhead noted that the College must strike a good balance between protecting the freedom of self-discovery on the one hand and ensuring adequacy and coherence in an undergraduate's education on the other. Speaking about the distributional requirements developed at Yale in the late 1970's, Dean Brodhead noted a number of deficiencies, among them the tendency of students seek science courses with the least amount of science in them, and relative ease with which students can fulfill their Group 1 requirement by virtue of the many different disciplines that fall within that grouping.

Dean Brodhead noted that it may be worthwhile to focus not on subject groupings, but rather on the intellectual and other skills that ought to be developed in the course of one's education, such as writing, oral communication, quantitative reasoning, and the ability to work in groups. He noted that Yale has a tradition of assigning lots of writing in many different contexts, not just in English or writing courses.




2. Panel Discussion

Following Dean Brodhead's address was a panel discussion conducted by members of the committee on the curriculum.

1. Peter Salovey, Chair of Subcommittee on Biomedical Education

Professor Solvay spoke about 3 areas that his group is working on:
1. Lab Work-The importance of directing resources to lab experiences that students report as fulfilling;
   
   
2. Pre-Med Educational Initiative-Exploring ways in which the pre-med experience at Yale could be as diverse and enriching as the experience of other majors, by (1) questioning the way things have always been done; (2) soliciting more input from students; (3) improving the quality of the science hill experience; (4) integrating the fields of public health and science and consider developing new, interdisciplinary majors.
   
   
2. Charles Bailyn, chair of a Subcommittee focused on teaching science to the lay person.

Professor Bailyn spoke about the absence of a gathering place for students on science hill, forcing them to trudge back and forth when they need to eat lunch or dinner. He also spoke about the lack of an emphasis at Yale on the importance of quantitative reasoning as an intellectual skill that undergraduates should develop.

3. Rachel Alpert '03, a student majoring in International Studies and Political Science.

Ms. Alpert spoke about her experience spending a summer in China and the important role her teacher played in encouraging her to do something she had not previously considered. Her academic program and interests were shaped significantly by her experience there, and she also was able to learn a foreign language in the field rather than in the classroom. Finally, Ms. Alpert addressed the value of the alumni as a resource for students who are seeking career advice and spoke enthusiastically about the network that Yale is currently putting together to facilitate this.



4. Christine Hayes, Member of the Humanities Working Group and Professor of Religious Studies.

Professor Hayes spoke about the importance of recognizing and keeping what is good about the curriculum at Yale, such as the late deadline for declaring a major (end of sophomore year) and the requirement of 36 courses rather than 32. She also noted certain shortcomings associated with the distributional requirements, such as trend toward departmentalization and away from the development of interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge and the intellect. Students should be encouraged to think outside the box, to pursue a program of study that ties different disciplines together in a creative and coherent manner. She spoke about the changes she helped institute within the religious studies department, which has generally been a loose amalgamation of linguists, historians, philosophers, and theologians. An effort is being made to instill more coherence in the religious studies curriculum at Yale by focusing in the question of what a well-educated, well-rounded religious studies major should know.


3. Keynote Address by Professor Donald Brown

Donald Brown, the Philip A. Allen Professor of Economics at Yale and Director of Graduate Studies in Economics, gave a keynote presentation before dinner Friday evening entitled "The Elements of a Liberal Education."

Professor Brown began his address by discussing one of the factors motivating businessman Leland Stanford to endow the founding of Stanford University. Stanford had observed in his many years as a successful businessman that people with a liberal education did much better in business than those who were technically trained in business or finance.

Brown noted two fundamental purposes of a liberal education: breadth and depth. Professor Brown spoke rather extensively about Stanford's approach to a liberal education. He was a professor at Stanford when that college underwent a major review of its curriculum several years ago. At Stanford, he noted that students are expected and encouraged to concentrate in one or more areas. At Yale, in contrast, students are often discouraged from pursuing double majors because of the emphasis on making full use of electives.

Professor Brown put forward a bold proposal to get people thinking about the purpose of a liberal education and ways to achieve it: he proposed getting rid of electives. He noted that the curriculum at Yale and most other colleges is now divided in thirds: (1) courses dedicated to fulfilling distributional requirements; (2) courses dedicated to fulfilling the major; and (3) electives. He proposes requiring students to concentrate in 2 areas, suggesting that the term "concentration" replace that of "major" in order to get outside the departmental box. He noted that, unlike in past eras, the goal of liberal education is increasingly to prepare a student for a life of learning, and one that may well consist of two or more different careers. Against that backdrop, why not insist that a student become proficient in more than one discipline?

Addressing the shortcomings of Yale's distributional requirements, Professor Brown noted that those requirements do not communicate any clear definition of the liberal education. Rather, they represent a classical approach to liberal education which focuses on exposing students to courses in 4 classically defined subject areas, without conveying to the student any of the essential intellectual attributes that ought to be part of the liberal education.

Professor Brown proposes requiring students to take courses which involve specific intellectual disciplines, such as quantitative reasoning (QR), critical reading (CR) and writing. Speaking about close or critical reading (he did not use the term deconstructionism), he noted the importance of exposing student to alternate ways of understanding the world. As a trained economist skilled in positivist and analytical thought, Professor Brown noted that it has taken much time and practice for him to learn to study literature effectively and engage in close reading of text. In doing so, he has acquired new intellectual talents that help him think about the world around him in a way different from the way he was trained as a social scientist.

Professor Brown spoke as well about the importance of freeing up science for study by lay people. Students should be encouraged to study the history, philosophy and ethics of science and should be given science credit for that.

Professor Brown also emphasized the usefulness of categorizing courses by the degree of depth or breadth, so that students could be required to move gradually from breadth to depth in various academic areas as they progress from their first to their fourth year.

Professor Brown's approach to revamping the curriculum, and the bold proposal of eliminating electives, certainly had the effect of getting the delegates to think outside the box about curriculum changes, in a context where nothing is off the table. His address also had the effect of stimulating debate about the fundamental purposes of the liberal education, and the degree of paternalism that is or is not required to ensure that students graduate with coherence to their education.

Although there was not time left for Professor Brown to take question, a robust discussion among delegates followed at the reception and dinner Friday evening and the next day. Many delegates were strongly opposed to the idea of eliminating electives, a point that seemed to detract attention from the many other suggestions of Professor Brown that enhanced the discussion about the curriculum (such as better ways of classifying courses in order to identify the intellectual skills that are being taught). Although some expressed the view that one could not make informed choices about one's major without the use of electives, Professor Brown appeared to be making the point that such discovery and experimentation could occur in the process of taking the 12 courses required for the fulfillment of the new distributional requirements. Currently, students tend to select those courses for the purpose of fulfilling their distribution requirements, not for the purpose of deciding what to major in.

Friday, October 25th

1. Break-Out Session

A break-out session was conducted on Friday morning in which delegates were divided into small groups facilitated by residential college deans. The dean of Branford College led the session which I attended. All delegates had completed an exercise prior to the session in which they selected courses from the current course catalog as if they were embarking on their undergraduate years anew. The dean spoke briefly about the advice and counseling available to current Yale students in the context of course selection, and the important role the student plays in seeking out the advice. He spoke about the increasing influence of parents and the media on students, many of whom come to campus with settled notions about the career they want to pursue and the course of study that will get them there. This is a challenge facing deans and faculty whose face the task of guiding and counseling students about their program of study.

The group divided into yet smaller groups of 4 or 5 delegates for the purpose of discussing the course selections we made and the principles and interests that guided their decisions. The themes arising from my small group's discussion included the importance of: (1) learning to think critically, and to argue and persuade without being argumentative; (2) understanding how other people think (including people from other cultures as well as people from other academic disciplines), in part to improve the level and quality of communication with others; (3) studying international relations and globalism, and learning about a foreign culture (and immersing oneself in a foreign language) by living and studying abroad; (4) encouraging students to take risks in course selection if they see something they like but are unsure of their aptitude, noting the effect the grade-consciousness has on the curriculum. Most of us noted from the courses we picked that we were bolder in our selections, opting for courses in subjects that we knew nothing about but which interested us, and wishing we had done more of that as an undergraduate.

2. Luncheon on the Endowment and Investing at Yale


A variety of luncheons were held on Friday. I was assigned to attend the luncheon featuring members of the Yale Investment Office, who explained Yale's strategy for investing and growing the endowment. The head of the Investment Office, Seth Alexander (Yale '95), talked to the delegates about Yale's efforts over the past 15 years to move toward investment in alternative assets, such as real estate, in order both to achieve a higher yield and to protect the endowment from stock market turbulence and downturns. The Investment Office also places much time and emphasis on locating competent and effective fund managers. Yale's results continue to be impressive. Its return for fiscal year 2001 (June 2000 to June 2001) was +9.2%, compared with -2.6% for the average endowment. Fiscal year 2002 saw a yield of +0.7%, when the average return for endowments generally was negative. Yale's 10-year number is +16.9% per year, as compared with an average 10-year endowment yield of +10.3% per year. Yale's 20-year number is +17.0% per year, as compared with +12.7% per year average endowment return over the past 20 years. Thirty-one percent of Yale's operating revenues ($470 million in 2003) comes from the endowment. This figure is just under 5% of the total endowment.

In the question-answer session, the issue of socially responsible investing came up. Mr. Alexander explained that the Investment Office has an internal review process to address these issues and make decisions. When asked about Yale's investment in tobacco companies, he indicated that the Investment Office concluded, after internal review and discussion, that it could make a more positive impact if it held its shares in tobacco companies and voted those shares in a responsible fashion.

3. Town Meeting on Curriculum

Dean Brodhead and a panel of members of the review committee made themselves available for a two-hour town meeting in which alumni were free to ask questions and express their views. The discussion was robust and reflected a variety of different concerns among the delegates. Among other comments, one delegate asked about ways in which to prepare entering students for making choices about their program of study that reflects an appreciation and understanding of the purposes of a liberal education. Certainly, the 3-day assembly on the curriculum encouraged this delegate to think differently about the purposes of his undergraduate education and the subjects available for study at Yale. Perhaps if students were immersed in a seminar on the liberal education for several days at the beginning of their Yale years similar to the one delegates were treated to, it might help them make more informed choices among the two thousand courses in the Yale College Programs of Study. Many other comments were shared and questions raised, which I am unable to record in full here. Suffice it to say that Dean Brodhead and the panel did a thorough job at answering and/or addressing the issues raised.




4. Club Break-Out Sessions

The last session on Friday afternoon was a meeting of Yale Club representatives, broken down by size. I attended the meeting of delegates from medium sized clubs (60-200 active members). Prior to breaking up into groups, some statistics were shared about Yale Clubs generally. One-third collect no dues, and of those that do collect dues, 10% of alumni in the area are regular dues-paying members. Delegates were also apprised about the on-line initiative underway to enable students to receive career advice from alumni. Alumni would volunteer to make their contact information available on a database accessible to current students, who do not have access to the on-line alumni database. This program should be up and running by late spring. A pilot project is also underway at the Provost's office to help the university keep track of the travels of high-profile faculty around the country, so that clubs might find out about someone from Yale coming to their area.

At the break-out session for delegates from medium sized clubs, a number of interesting ideas for events and increasing membership were shared from the experiences of the various clubs represented. Various clubs shared their success with speakers luncheons, museum tours, plays, book clubs. The Yale Club of Louisville, as part of a program called Bulldogs and Bluegrass, sponsors a current Yale student to come to the area for the summer to work for a non-profit organization.

Delegates from a couple of clubs spoke about their success in scheduling different events that might appeal to different audiences. Rather than trying to come up with one annual event that appeals to all age groups and interests, the idea is to schedule a variety of smaller events to encourage participation of people who may not have preciously been active. If an event yields only 10 people, but 7 of them had not participated in any prior club activity, then the event could be viewed as a success despite the small numbers. Delegates also noted that it is not necessary to come up with events that can be done every year. Certain events may be appropriate for one year only, such as an auction or formal ball to raise money for a charity. With respect to efforts to get younger alumni involved, a young delegate from Boston spoke about mixers and gathering that take place with graduates from other Ivy League schools.

Saturday, May 26th

1. Address by President Levin

President Levin addressed the delegates on Saturday morning. He spoke about building projects at the Medical School and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. The new medical research building, nearly complete, will be the second largest building on campus and will expand available lab space. President Levin also spoke of efforts underway to strengthen the clinical program at Yale Medical School.

President Levin reported that the University had hired 16 new senior professors, 8 of whom were women. He mentioned recent publications from two Yale professors, the first a book on genius by Harold Bloom and the second a short biography of Ben Franklin by Edmund Morgan. President Levin spoke as well of the Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale, which is now headed by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. President Zedillo recently brought Kofi Annan to campus, who spoke to students in 3 or 4 packed auditoriums (with the help of closed- circuit TV).

President Levin spoke at length about the University's frustrating and unsuccessful efforts to sign a contract with the unions. In March of this year, the university brought in professional negotiation facilitators in an attempt to break out of the pattern of periodic confrontation between the University and the unions. This past summer, the University offered the unions an increase in salary (6% per year for local 34 and 3% per year for local 35), as well as other protections, which was turned down. Two issues that have bogged down the negotiations are the unionization of graduate students and the unionization of workers at Yale-New Haven Hospital, neither of which the University will agree to. In the President's opinion, the unions would rather engage confrontation and in attempts to embarrass the university than accept a deal that is in the interest of their workers.

2. Yale College Class Meeting

At a meeting of class officers and other delegates, on-line initiatives were discussed, including a class events calendar and a "toolbox" of resources for class officers and other volunteers. The meeting was followed by how-to workshops on planning class mini reunions and building an effective class council.

3. Indoor Tailgate at Coxe Cage and Yale-Penn Football Game

The fall assembly was concluded with an indoor tailgate at Coxe Cage and the Yale-Penn Game at the Bowl. Yale lost, 41-20.

Final Note on November 23rd Harvard-Yale Game

For those attending the upcoming Harvard-Yale Game, the Yale Club of Boston is hosting a reception Friday evening, November 22nd, at the Harvard Club. Contact the Alumni House for details.