Add subtitle information here

WHAT SHALL WE TEACH THEM?

The history of the

higher education

curriculum

Mike Ratcliffe Oxford Brookes University

4 April 2012

Room 4.214

Anyone who attends to the history of debates about

the values and purposes of universities needs to

cultivate a high toleration of repetition.

In Britain, though also elsewhere, these debates tend

to fall into a particularly dispiriting pattern, which might

be parodied as the conflict between the ‘useful’ and

the ‘useless’. (Collini, 2012, p 39)

WHAT ARE UNIVERSITIES FOR?

CULTIVATING HUMANITY

It is relatively easy to construct a gentleman’s

education for a homogeneous elite. It is far more

difficult to prepare people of highly diverse

backgrounds for complex world citizenship.

Nussbaum, M, 1997, Cultivating Humanity, Cambridge MA, Harvard p295

SOCRATES

If I tell you that this is the greatest good for a human being, to engage every day in arguments about virtue and the other things that you have heard me talk about, examining both myself and others, and if I tell you that the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being, you will be even less likely to believe what I am saying. But that’s the way it is, gentlemen…

Socrates, quoted in Plato, Apology, quoted in Nussbaum, M, 1997,

Cultivating Humanity, Harvard UP, Cambridge MA

PLATO’S EDUCATION FOR THE GUARDIANS

(1) Up to 17 or 18, the early training in literature and music and in elementary

mathematics will be carried on with as little compulsion as possible.

(2) From 17 or 18 to 20, an intensive course of physical and military training

will leave no leisure for study.

(3) From 20 to 30, a select few will go through the advanced course in

mathematics… with a view to grasping the connexions between the

several branches of mathematics and their relation to reality

(4) After a further selection, the years from 30 to 35 will be given wholly to

Dialectic, and especially to the principles of morality. Plato once more

insists on the danger of a too early questioning of these principles.

(5) From 35 to 50, practical experience of life will be gained by public service

in subordinate posts

(6) At 50 the best will reach the vision of the Good and thereafter divide their

time between study and governing the state as the supreme council

Cornford, F, 1941, The Republic of Plato, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p250

A LECTURE BY HEINRICH THE GERMAN

IN BOLOGNA CIRCA 1380

Nobles and persons of elevated

charisma have the best places...

The bearded gentleman in the front

pew might be the tutor of the

auditor next to him…

Since attention seems greater in

the front two and side pews, the

image intimates that those of

higher standing pay most attention

– a curious notion, today at least.

Clark, W., 2006, Academic Charisma and the

Origins of the Research University, Chicago,

Chicago University Press, pp70-71 Laurentius de Voltolina,

THE PLACE OF THE ARTS COURSE Faculty Degrees

Trivium

Grammar logic rhetoric

Quadrivium

Arithmetic geometry astronomy music

Three Philosophies

Moral and natural philosophy metaphysics

BA

MA

Canon Law

Civil Law

BCL/LLM

DCL/LLD

Medicine MB BCh

DM

Theology/Divinity BD

DD

HIGHER FACULTIES

William Brewster licence to practise medicine throughout England, issued to William Brewster, Bachelor of Medicine, by the University of Oxford. Produced in Oxford.

17 December 1692

INNS OF COURT

Originally hostels hired from a

landlord by a group or society

of ‘Apprentices of the Law’.

The ‘societies were not

incorporated, their status was

similar to that of the hall-

communities’ [of the

Universities]

FOUNDATION STORIES: GRESHAM COLLEGE

1597

The College was intended to be

supplied with seven Professors in

subjects selected by Gresham,

with a bias towards those areas of

study relevant to the City context.

The Corporation was to have the

nomination of four of the

Professors: in Divinity, Astronomy,

Geometry and Music. The

Mercers’ Company was to have

the appointment of the Professors

in Law, Physic and Rhetoric.

Chartres & Vermont, 1998, A brief History of Gresham College,

London, Gresham College p6

Sir Thomas Gresham

LAUDIAN REFORMS 1636

Archbishop Laud has the statutes

of Oxford thoroughly revised.

Mallet describes:

All these public lectures were to

last three-quarters of an hour.

They were to be given in person,

not by a deputy, and Professor and

Readers who failed to give them

had to pay five or ten shillings as a

fine.

Further rules stipulated that

Elaborate and immoderate hair

must never be encouraged

NEW STATUTES FOR DEGREES Faculty Degrees

Arts/Philosophy

first year: Grammar and Rhetoric

second: Logic and Moral Philosophy, Geometry;

third and fourth: Logic and Moral Philosophy, Geometry and

Greek

fifth (bachelors of first year): Geometry, Metaphysics, History,

Greek – and Hebrew if destined for the Church;

sixth and seventh: Astronomy, natural Philosophy, Metaphysics,

History, Greek, - and Hebrew, if intending divines.

BA

MA

Civil Law BCL/LLM

DCL/LLD

Medicine MB BCh

DM

Theology/Divinity BD

DD

CURRICULUM AT NORTHAMPTON ACADEMY

1643

First Year Second Year Third Year Fourth Year

Logic

Rhetoric

Geography

Metaphysics

Geometry

Algebra

Trigonometry

Conic sections

Celestial

Mechanics

Natural and

Experimental

Philosophy

Divinity

Orations

Natural History

Civil History

Anatomy

Jewish Antiquities

Divinity

Orations

Civil Law

Mythology and

Hieroglyphics

English History

History of Non-

conformity

Divinity

Preaching

Pastoral Care etc

Parker, 1914, 86

DISSENTING ACADEMIES:

ACT OF UNIFORMITY 1662

That every Dean, Canon, and Prebendary of every Cathedral, or Collegiate Church, and all Masters, and other Heads, Fellows, Chaplains, and Tutors of, or in any Colledge, Hall, House of Learning, or Hospital, and every Publick Professor, and Reader in either of the Universities, and in every Colledge elsewhere, and every Parson, Vicar, Curate, Lecturer, and every other person in holy Orders, and every School-master keeping any publick, or private School, and every person Instructing, or Teaching any Youth in any House or private Family as a Tutor, or School-master, …, subscribe the Declaration or Acknowledgement following, Scilicet,

A. B. Do declare … that I will conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England, as it is now by Law established.

And if any Schoolmaster or other person, Instructing or teaching Youth in any private House or Family, as a Tutor or Schoolmaster, shall Instruct or Teach any Youth as a Tutor or Schoolmaster, before License obtained from his respective Archbiship, Bishop, or Ordinary of the Diocess, according to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm, (for which he shall pay twelve-pence onely) and before such subscription and acknowledgement made as aforesaid; Then every such School-master and other, Instructing and Teaching as aforesaid, shall for the first offence suffer three months Imprisonment without bail or mainprize; and for every second and other such offense shall suffer three months Imprisonment without bail or mainprize, and also forfeit to His Majesty the sum of five pounds.

A PLACE OF USEFUL LEARNING

John Anderson’s Will

Professors in Arts faculty:

Physics, Ethics, Logic and Rhetoric, Greek, Senior Latin, Junior Latin, Civil History, Mathematics and Chemistry

Further faculties of Medicine, Law and Theology

No one connected in any capacity with Glasgow University: ‘thus… the almost constant intrigues, which prevail in the Faculty of Glasgow College about their revenue, and the Nomination of Professors, or their Acts of Vanity, or Power, Inflamed by a Collegiate life, will be kept out of Anderson’s University…’

SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT & CRITIQUE OF

OXFORD

Edinburgh

Strengths include the international

standing of the medical faculty; more

students attending the anatomy class

in one year than were matriculated at

Cambridge and Oxford combined.

Edinburgh Review 1808

“We believe, however, that it is chiefly in the public institutions of England, that we are to seek for the cause of the deficiency here referred to, and particularly in the two great centres, from which knowledge is supposed to radiate over all the rest of the island. In one of these, where the dictates of Aristotle are still listened to as infallible decrees, and where the infancy of science is mistaken for its maturity, the mathematical sciences have never flourished; and the scholar has no means of advancing beyond the mere elements of Geometry.”

UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN 1807

The pursuit of Wissenschaft in the new University

of Berlin was to be an ‘unceasing process of

inquiry’

‘The progress of science and scholarship is

obviously more rapid and more lively in a university

where their problems are discussed back and forth

by a large number of forceful, vigorous, youthful

intelligences. Science and Scholarship cannot be

presented in a genuinely scientific or scholarly

manner without constantly generating independent

thought and stimulation…’

‘Never before or since have ancient institutions

been so completely remodelled to accord with an

idea’ (Flexner)

Humboldt, W Von., (1970), On the Spirit and the Organisational Framework of Intellectual Institutions in Berlin,

translated by Shills, E., in: ‘University Reform in Germany’, Minerva Vol. 8, 1970, pp 242-250

Flexner, A, (1930), Universities: American, English, German, New York, Oxford University Press, p311

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA – OPENED 1825

• Secular

• Elective system

• Professorial

"we wish to establish in

the upper & healthier

country, & more centrally

for the state an University

on a plan so broad & liberal

& modern, as to be worth

patronising with the public

support, and be a

temptation to the youth of

other states to come, and

drink of the cup of knolege

& fraternize with us."

‘UNIVERSITY OF LONDON’ 1826

For effectively and multifariously teaching, examining, exercising and rewarding with honours in the liberal arts and sciences the youth of our middling rich people… an establishment availing itself of all the experience and experiments that can be appealed to for facilitating the art of teaching, a University combining the advantages of public and private education, the emulative spirit produced by examination before numbers, and by honours conferred before the public, the cheapness of domestic residence and all the moral influence that results from home.

Extract from letter of Thomas Campbell to Mr Brougham, published in the Times,

9 February 1825, quoted in Allchin, W, 1905, An Account of the Reconstruction

of the University of London, London, HK Lewis p3

'UNIVERSITY OF LONDON'

It consists with the liberal principles

of the present age that the projected

College should leave its students

free to attend whatever classes and

in whatever succession they may

think fit. There should be no

excluding laws except on the score

of infamous character or behaviour.

Campbell T, 1825, 'Suggestions respecting the plan of

a college in London', in New Monthly Magazine, vol 10

pp1-11

'UNIVERSITY OF LONDON'

It was the plan of the University

that most of the students should

follow a regular course and

submit to periodic examination,

upon which should be awarded

professors' and university

certificates. In the event there

prevailed something very like

what is known in the United

States as the 'elective system',

and very few troubled to qualify

for certificates even in those

subjects which they chose.

“The Universities of London and

Virginia” Long wrote to Cocke,

“are the same in their general

plan... We allow, for instance,

students to chose their own

classes, but the Council, who

correspond to the visitors,

recommend a certain course to

those who enter at an early

period of life.” …

It was intended that a daily report

of attendances should be kept,

and monthly reports sent to

parents and guardians, but these

rules were not kept.

Bellot, 1929, pp179-181

KING’S COLLEGE 1828

King’s College

‘A college for general education be

founded in the metropolis, in which,

while the various branches of

literature and science are made the

subjects of instruction, it shall be an

essential part of the system to

immure the minds of youth with a

knowledge of the doctrines and

duties of Christianity as inculcated

by the United Church of England

and Ireland.’

D’Oyly, G, 1828, Letter to Right Hon Robert Peel on the

Subject of the London University

YALE FACULTY REPORT 1828

The two great points to be gained in intellectual culture, are the

discipline and the furniture of the mind; expanding its powers, and

storing it with knowledge. The former of these is, perhaps, the more

important of the two. A commanding object, therefore, in a collegiate

course, should be, to call into daily and vigorous exercise the faculties

of the student. Those branches of study should be prescribed, and

those modes of instruction adopted, which are best calculated to teach

the art of fixing the attention, directing the train of thought, analyzing a

subject proposed for investigation; following, with accurate

discrimination, the course of argument; balancing nicely the evidence

presented to the judgment; awakening, elevating, and controlling the

imagination; arranging, with skill, the treasures which memory gathers;

rousing and guiding the powers of genius. All this is not to be effected

by a light and hasty course of study; by reading a few books, hearing a

few lectures, and spending some months at a literary institution.

YALE FACULTY REPORT 1828

The two great points to be gained in intellectual culture, are the

discipline and the furniture of the mind; expanding its powers, and

storing it with knowledge. The former of these is, perhaps, the more

important of the two. A commanding object, therefore, in a collegiate

course, should be, to call into daily and vigorous exercise the faculties

of the student. Those branches of study should be prescribed, and

those modes of instruction adopted, which are best calculated to teach

the art of fixing the attention, directing the train of thought, analyzing a

subject proposed for investigation; following, with accurate

discrimination, the course of argument; balancing nicely the evidence

presented to the judgment; awakening, elevating, and controlling the

imagination; arranging, with skill, the treasures which memory gathers;

rousing and guiding the powers of genius. All this is not to be effected

by a light and hasty course of study; by reading a few books, hearing a

few lectures, and spending some months at a literary institution.

DURHAM’S CURRICULUM FOR THE

ARTS COURSE

Classical & General Literature

Aristotle's Ethics.

Xenophon's Memorabilia.

Thucydides

Herodotus, v. vi. vii. viii. ix.

Æschylus, Persae, Agamemnon, Choephoroe, Eumenides.

Sophocles, Electra, Philoctetes, Antigone.Œdipus Tyrannus.

Euripides, Alcestis, Medea, Hecuba, Heraclidae.

Livy, Second Decade.

Tacitus, History.

Physical & Mathematical Sciences

Euclid, i.-vi. xi.

Arithmetic

Algebra

Plane and Spherical Trigonometry

Analytical Geometry.

Conic Sections.

Mechanics.

Hydrostatics

Astronomy

Differential and Integral Calculus

Newton i. ii. iii. ix. xi.

Calendar, 1842, subjects for examination, third year

DURHAM’S CURRICULUM FOR

ENGINEER STUDENTS

Who in their final year covered:

Arithmetic. Algebra. Euclid. Logarithms. Plane and Spherical

Trigonometry. Analytical Geometry. Conic Sections. Theoretical and

Practical Mechanics. Differential and Integral Calculus. Dynamics.

Hydrostatics. Hydraulics. Pneumatics. Surveying, Levelling, and the

Use of Instruments. Practical Mapping and Architectural Drawing,

Theory of Perspective and Projections. Hydrostatical and Hydraulical

Instruments. The Steam Engine, Optics and Optical Instruments.

Astronomy and Astronomical Instruments. Theoretical and Practical

Chemistry. Theory of Heat. Metallurgy. Geology. The French and

German Languages.

THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY:

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 1852

John Henry Newman

First rector of the Catholic

University of Ireland, later

incorporated into the

National University of

Ireland as University

College Dublin

‘Knowledge is capable of being

its own end. Such is the

constitution of the human mind

that any kind of knowledge, if it

really be such, is its own reward’

THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY:

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 1852

‘A university is according to the usual description, an

Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a

foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill’

A University training “aims at raising the intellectual

tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at

purifying the national taste, at supplying true

principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to

popular aspirations, at giving enlargement and

sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the

exercise of political powers, and refining the

intercourse of private life’

HONOURS SCHOOLS & TRIPOS

Cambridge

Mathematics (1748)

Classics (1824)

Moral Sciences (1851)

Natural Sciences (1851)

Law (1858)

Theology (1874)

History (1875)

Semitic Languages (1878)

Medieval & Modern Languages (1886)

Mechanical Sciences (1894)

Economics (1905)

Oxford

Literae Humaniores (1800)

Mathematics (1825)

Natural Science (1850)

Theology (1869)

Jurisprudence (1872)

Modern History (1872)

Oriental Languages (1886)

English Language & Literature

(1893)

Modern Languages (1903)

A SCIENCE DEGREE FOR THE

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

In fact, a fifth branch of knowledge - Science - the result of

the search after the laws by which natural phænomena are

governed, apart from any direct application of such laws to

an art - has gradually grown up, and being unrecognised

as a whole has become dismembered.

The remedy for these evils appears to us to be, that the

Academic bodies in this country should (like those of

France and Germany) recognise 'Science' as a Discipline

and as a Calling, and should place it on the same footing

with regard to Arts, as Medicine and Law...

Memorial, Senate Minutes, University of London, 12 May 1858

A SOCIAL SCIENCE DEGREE FOR THE

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

For the benefit of students intending to enter on a Public or

Commercial career, or whose inclination leads them

towards Social or Political inquiries your Memorialists

respectfully recommend to your consideration, the utility of

establishing a Degree of Bachelor in Moral and Economic

Science

Memorial, Senate Minutes, University of London 20 October 1858

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 1858

Second BA Examination Mathematics & Natural Philosophy Statics, Dynamics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics and Pneumatics, Optics, Acoustics, Astronomy Animal Physiology Classics The Greek and Latin Languages Logical and Moral Philosophy

Second BSc Examination

Mathematics & Natural Philosophy

Statics, Dynamics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics and Pneumatics, Optics, Acoustics, Astronomy

Organic Chemistry

Animal Physiology

Geology & Palæontology

Logic & Moral Philosophy

MILL ON PROFESSIONAL DEGREES

Universities are not intended to teach the knowledge required to fit men for

some special mode of gaining their livelihood. Their object is not to make

skillful lawyers, or physicians or engineers, but capable and cultivated human

beings …

Men are men before they are lawyers or physicians, or merchants, or

manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will

make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians. What

professional men should carry away with them from a university is not

professional knowledge, but that which should direct the use of their

professional knowledge, and bring the light of general culture to illuminate the

technicalities of a special pursuit.

John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address, St Andrew’s University 1867

ELECTIVE PROGRAMMES:

CHARLES W ELIOT

… ‘what he wished to

do in higher education

was … [to] shift from

external compulsion

and discipline to

internal compulsion

and discipline.’

Morison, S. E., (1942) Three Centuries of Harvard 1636-1936, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press p344

ELECTIVE PROGRAMMES:

CHARLES W ELIOT

‘The endless controversies

whether language, philosophy,

mathematics or science supplies

the best training, whether

general education should be

chiefly literary or chiefly scientific,

have no practical lesson for us

today.’…

‘We would have them all, and at

their best’

Eliot, C W., (1869) ‘Inaugural address’, in Addresses at the inauguration of Charles William Elliot as President of Harvard College, Sever & Francis, Cambridge MA

RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES

Daniel Coit Gilman & Johns

Hopkins

‘The most stimulating influence

that higher education in

America has known’

Lernfreiheit - freedom to study

Lehrfreiheit - freedom to teach/

research

THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN 1866

‘Among the most necessary and the most easily and immediately

applicable, is the extension to women of such examinations as

demand a high standard of attainment. The test of a searching

examination is indispensable as a guarantee for the qualifications of

teachers; it is wanted as a stimulus by young women studying with

no immediate object in view, and no incentive to exertion other than

the high, but dim and distant, purpose of self-culture. ’

‘The extension of the London examinations to women need present

no greater difficulties than those which have been already overcome

in throwing open the Cambridge local examinations to girls…’

‘The conclusion arrived at [is] a large day-school attended by

scholars either living at home or at small boardinghouses has a

clear advantage, both as regards economy and mental and moral

training’

Davies, E, 1988, Higher Education of Women, London, Hambledon Press

WOMEN AT CAMBRIDGE

‘They provide … a

published list … shewing

the place in order of

standing and merit which

such students would have

occupied if they had been

men. But they do not

permit the University to

actually confer upon

women the time-honoured

degree of BA or MA, and

they do not admit them to

the standing of Members of

the University’

ROYAL COMMISSION ON SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION

1872

... I, myself, and some others, have been for years been in the position of urging upon the University that they should spontaneously come forward and take the step which is now proposed, that they should institute a complete course of scientific instruction, which should be entirely detached from the literary instruction in the University

Pattison, M, 1872, Minutes of Evidence, p240

ROYAL COMMISSION ON SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION

1872

'Some persons have schemes for giving degrees in science alone, and for giving a medical degree without those literary requirements that I speak of [especially Greek], as is done at other universities; but an Oxford degree, whether rightly or wrongly, is thought to have a value that the degrees of those other universities have not, and if you took away the literary part, I imagine that you would take away that value from the degree‘

Jowett, B, 1872, Minutes of Evidence, p250

TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION IN LONDON

CENTRAL INSTITUTION, Exhibition Road

The object of the Central Institution is to give to London a College for the higher technical education, in which advanced instruction shall be provided in those kinds of knowledge which bear upon the different branches of industry, whether Manufactures or Arts. The instruction to be given will be such as shall qualify persons to become—

1. Technical teachers.

2. Mechanical, civil and electrical engineers, architects, builders, and decorative artists.

3. Principals, superintendents and managers of chemical and other manufacturing works. Laboratory Instruction will be given in Chemistry, Physics, Mechanics and Engineering, and special lectures will be delivered on the Technology of different Trades.

Three Colleges: Royal

College of Science, City

& Guilds College and

Royal School of Mines

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY 1902

The degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours is granted in the following schools: Classics History English Language & Literature Modern Languages & Literatures Philosophy Architecture Economic & Political Science

The degree of Bachelor of Science with Honours is granted in the following schools: Mathematics Engineering Physics Chemistry Zoology Physiology Geology, mineralogy,

palaeontology Botany

University College Liverpool, Calendar for the session 1902-1903, University Press of Liverpool pp44-65

MODERN UNIVERSITIES

‘To an Englishman, a university

is something very old, very

venerable, very picturesque,

very large, very select, very

detached, and, of course, very

learned. Those who have had to

fight the cause of the new

universities have found

themselves between the upper

and nether millstones which

bound this conception of a

university.’

‘The … Englishman … [is]

aghast at our newness, our

inconspicuousness, our ugly

mundane surroundings, our

incompleteness in range of

studies, our poverty in the

number of learned men, our

poverty in halls of residence, our

strange new studies about

leather, dyeing, and brewing.’

Arthur Smithells -The Modern University Movement –address to the Leeds Art Club in November 1906

CORE CURRICULUM:

THE CORE IN A COLUMBIA EDUCATION

The Core Curriculum is the cornerstone as well as the intellectual

signature of a Columbia education. Students and alumni repeatedly

point to the Core as not only academically formative, but as personally

transformative. For many students, the most meaningful classroom

experience at Columbia-the insight about themselves that changes

their perspective on life, or the breakthrough understanding about

society that determines their choice of career-happens in the close-knit

environment of the Core classroom. Students in the Core encounter

texts, ideas, and works of art that have deeply influenced the world in

which we live, and that continue to shape how we think about

ourselves and our society.

GENERAL EDUCATION: CHICAGO 1931

Faced with the difficult cluster of questions which the

departmentalization of education raises, the faculty of the College at

Chicago has undertaken to determine the essentials of a liberal

education and to devise an integrated system of courses to provide

them. The programme of the College is consequently not elective. To

be eligible for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, the student must pass

examinations which test his competence in the basic principles, the

major concepts and methods, and the salient facts in natural sciences,

the social sciences, the humanities, and mathematics, and his ability to

express himself clearly.

Faust, C., ‘The Problem of General Education’ in Ward, C et all (1950) The Idea and Practice of General Education - an

account of the College of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Chicago University Press

ST JOHNS COLLEGE

‘Where Great Books are the teachers’

‘The first year is devoted to Greek authors and their

pioneering understanding of the liberal arts; the second

year contains books from the Roman, medieval, and

Renaissance periods; the third year has books of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most of which

were written in modern languages; the fourth year

brings the reading into the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries.’

CURRICULUM AT KEELE

One of the main objectives which it is hoped to achieve is to give every graduate as wide an understanding as possible of the factors which have been operative in building up our present civilisation and the forces that are current in the world today. …

It is intended that the foundation studies taken before specialisation should be presented as to give a comprehensible and integrated conception of the basic facts and principles of the main subjects…

It is desired to break down as far as possible any clear cur divisions between different branches of study and ensure that each student has a sympathetic understanding of the functions and importance of all the main human activities.

THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY: THE ROBBINS

PRINCIPLE

Throughout our report we have assumed as an axiom that courses

of higher education should be available for all those who are

qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and wish to

do so. …

If challenged we would vindicate it on two grounds. First conceiving

education as a means, we do not believe that modern societies can

achieve their aims of economic growth and higher cultural standards

without making the most of the talents of the citizens. …

But beyond that, education ministers intimately to ultimate ends, in

developing man’s capacity to understand, to contemplate and to

create. And it is characteristic of the aspirations of this age to feel

that, where there is a capacity to pursue such activities, there that

capacity should be fostered. The good society desires equality of

opportunity for its citizens to become not merely good producers but

also good men and women.

A UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: ROBBINS REPORT 1963

253 We have received much evidence that is critical of present first degree courses, and of specialised honours courses in particular. It has come from the schools, from industry, from professional organisations and some from university teachers themselves. The complaints are under two heads: first, that the courses are overloaded and, second, that they are not suitable for many of the students who now take them. We shall discuss these criticisms separately.

254 In a period of rapidly changing knowledge there is undeniably a tendency to add new knowledge year by year to an already full curriculum. It is easier to add than to take away. It is difficult to reach agreement as to where to impart less knowledge and where to concentrate more on principles. Especially where an element of professional preparation is involved, the pressure is all the other way.

P91-92

A UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: ROBBINS REPORT 1963

262 The present distribution of students between different types of honours course is therefore unsatisfactory. A higher proportion should be receiving a broader education for their first degrees. This in itself calls for change. But if greatly increased numbers of undergraduates are to come into the universities in the future, change becomes essential. Indeed we regard such a change as a necessary condition for any large expansion of universities. Greatly increased numbers will create the opportunity to develop broader courses on a new and exciting scale, and we recommend that universities should make such development one of their primary aims

263 In many universities the need to offer a more general education has already begun to influence policy, and in recent years there have been many interesting attempts to provide broader courses of one kind or another. Yet the results to date have been comparatively meagre...

p93

ANTHONY CROSLAND 1965: THE POLYTECHNICS

‘Why should we not aim at … a

vocationally orientated non-

university sector which is

degree-giving and with

appropriate amount of

postgraduate work with

opportunities for learning

comparable with those of the

universities, and giving a first

class professional training …

under state control, directly

responsible to social needs’

Quoted in Hutchins, R., (1968), The Learning

Society, Harmondsworth, Penguin, p 115

‘The College of Technology, Headington, 1963’ in Henry, E,

(1981), Oxford Polytechnic, Genesis to Maturity, Oxford, Oxford

Polytechnic

CNAA’S GENERAL EDUCATIONAL AIMS

The aims will include the development to the level required for the

award of a body of knowledge and skills appropriate to the field of

study and reflecting academic developments in that field.

The aims will also include CNAA’s general educational aims: the

development of students’ intellectual and imaginative powers; their

understanding and judgement; their problem solving skills; their ability

to communicate; their ability to see relationships within what they have

learned and to perceive their field of study in a broader perspective.

Each student’s programme of study must stimulate an enquiring,

analytical and creative approach, encouraging independent judgement

and critical self-awareness.

CNAA Handbook

GENERAL EDUCATION

1 An educated person must be able to think and write clearly and effectively.

2 An educated person should have a critical appreciation of the ways in which we gain knowledge and understanding of the universe, of society, and of ourselves.

3 An educated American, in the last third of this century, cannot be provincial in the sense of being ignorant of other cultures and other times.

4 An educated person is expected to have some understanding of, and experience in thinking about, moral and ethical problems.

5 We should expect an educated individual to have good manners and high esthetic and moral standards.

6 Finally, an educated individual should have achieved depth in some field of knowledge.

Rosovsky, quoted in Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1977, Missions of the College Curriculum – a contemporary review with suggestions, San Franciso, Jossey-Bass

A UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: DEARING REPORT 1997

Breadth and depth of programmes

9.3 We have given much thought to the appropriate breadth and

depth of programmes, particularly at the undergraduate level. The

breadth of programmes was a particular theme for the Robbins

Committee. It felt that higher education was constrained by a

tradition of relatively narrow educational experiences, and that its

requirements drove a similarly narrow focus earlier in the

educational system. We believe that, while many students will

continue to welcome the opportunity to pursue a relatively narrow

field of knowledge in great depth, there will be many others for

whom this will be neither attractive, nor useful in future career terms,

nor suitable. In a world which changes rapidly, the nation will need

people with broad perspectives.

CURRICULUM REFORM: MELBOURNE

The core principle defining breadth is that students will take 75 points (or one-quarter of their degree) from disciplines which are not available within the degree program. …The Commission’s preferred structure for ‘breadth’ subjects is that students should be able to choose from a range of subjects and clusters of subjects approved by the ‘core’ program as adding strength to the degree.

Despite the variety of content and learning objectives among breadth subjects, all will have common features. All will be intellectually rigorous and challenging and will all emphasise the acquisition of higher-order thinking skills. In particular, breadth subjects will provide a special opportunity for University of Melbourne students to develop important graduate attributes that will allow them to become:

• academically excellent;

• knowledgeable across disciplines;

• leaders in communities;

• attuned to cultural diversity; and

• active global citizens.

CURRICULUM REFORM: ABERDEEN

We propose a set of Graduate Attributes. These are designed so that a

University of Aberdeen education will enable graduates to become:

– Academically excellent;

– Critical thinkers and effective communicators;

– Open to learning and personal development; and

– Active citizens.

…it became clear that there was a widespread view that, during their

degree study, students should have the opportunity to study material

beyond their chosen disciplines, which would set their disciplinary

study within a wider intellectual context. This, it was argued, would

enhance their disciplinary understanding, produce more informed

citizens and increase employability.

CURRICULUM REFORM: HARVARD

Program in General Education

The new Program goes into effect for the Class of 2013. The Harvard College Handbook for Students states: Students must complete one … course in each of the eight categories in General Education

– Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding , – Culture and Belief, – Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning, – Ethical Reasoning, – Science of Living Systems, – Science of the Physical Universe, – Societies of the World, and – United States in the World.

One of these eight courses must also engage substantially with the Study of the Past.

CURRICULUM REFORM:

HONG KONG UNIVERSITY

HKU’s new undergraduate curriculum will be characterized by seven

distinctive features:

(Inter)disciplinary inquiry

Multidisciplinary collaboration

Enquiry in multiple contexts

Diverse learning experiences

Multiple forms of learning & assessment

Engagement with local & global communities

Development of civic & moral values

THE RISE OF ASIA’S UNIVERSITIES

The leaders of China, in particular, have been very explicit in

recognizing that two elements are missing in their universities –

multidisciplinary breadth and the cultivation of critical thinking.

It is curious that while American and British politicians worry that Asia,

and China in particular, is training more scientists and engineers than

we are, the Chinese and others in Asia are worrying that their students

lack the independence and creativity to drive the innovation that will be

necessary to sustain economic growth in the long run. They fear that

specialization makes their graduates narrow and traditional Asian

pedagogy makes them unimaginative. Thus, they aspire to strengthen

their top universities by revising both curriculum and pedagogy.

Richard Levin, 2010, The Rise of Asia’s Universities

WELL-INFORMED STUDENTS DRIVING

TEACHING EXCELLENCE

Wider availability and better use of information for potential

students is fundamental to the new system. Students will

increasingly use the instant communication tools of the

twenty first century such as Twitter and Facebook to share

their views on their student experience with their friends,

families and the wider world. It will be correspondingly

harder for institutions to trade on their past reputations

while offering a poor teaching experience in the present.

Better informed students will take their custom to the

places offering good value for money. In this way, excellent

teaching will be placed back at the heart of every student’s

university experience.