How to break the Blue Book barrier

When students enrolled in last year's junior seminar Race, Ethnicity, and Nation: The African Diaspora expressed a desire to improve the offerings of the African studies program, Sociology Professor David Maurrasse decided to have an in-class discussion about the issues that the students wanted addressed. He noted all their concerns and, with their permission, submitted a complete list to the other faculty members of the African and African-American studies department.

In response, a committee comprised of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members was created to review the major, its requirements, and its courses. The committee recommended to the African studies program that the undergraduate major be moved under the aegis of the African Studies Council rather than the African and African-American studies department.

Yesterday, Department Chair Hazel Carby, Political Science Professor William Foltz, and History Professor Robert Harms had their first meeting as members of a joint subcommittee of the African and African-American studies department and the African Studies Council. The subcommittee, which aims to devise a new set of requirements for the major and investigate the establishment of a director of undergraduate studies (DUS), plans to make its recommendations to the African and African-American studies department this spring.

If the department votes in favor of the proposal, African studies will be considered a separate entity from the African-American studies department. For the first time at Yale, it will have its own introductory course, its own DUS, and its own listing in the Yale College Programs of Study (better known as the "Blue Book"), all of which presuppose substantial structural change. Equally impressive, however, is the fact that these suggested changes originated not with the faculty or the department, but with Yale students themselves.

What's in it for me?

During the first two weeks of any semester, students pore over the Blue Book and shop class after class in desperate attempts to piece together the perfect schedule--one that satisfies individual interests as well as requirements, one that challenges without overwhelming. While many Yalies finish shopping period pleased with the course offerings and their own selections, other students, like those in Maurrasse's seminar, are frustrated by what they find, or more likely do not find, in the Blue Book.

With well over 1,000 courses being offered and only 36 credits to complete, the average Yale student has a large number of choices to consider when crafting his or her academic career. Yet how well do these different options reflect the diverse interests, needs, and desires of students?

How much attention does the University--departments, faculty members, and administrators--pay to the criticisms of discontented students? Is the student-friendly environment of the African and African-American studies department an anomaly at Yale, or an accurate representation of the respect for student input and prioritization of student satisfaction found across the board?

If the Blue Book is the Bible, who is God?

"Curriculum creation is a faculty process," Deputy Provost Joe Gordon said. In order for a course to come into being, it must be sponsored by the faculty of a department, which is why students seeking to influence course creation and inclusion in the Blue Book should first seek support among professors in the appropriate department. The situation in African studies exemplifies how faculty-centric the curriculum really is. It also represents the potential impact that student-faculty partnerships can have in this complex process.

When History DUS Robert Johnston was approached by the Korean Studies Committee about introducing a course in Korean history, he suggested that the students try to develop a constituency within the history faculty, especially among Asian historians. "I think that a course in Korean history would be great, but there are a lot of courses that would be great," Johnston said. "You need to find people to support you, because it's something of a zero-sum game."

Zero-Sum Game

Johnston's reference to the curriculum as a "zero-sum game" intimates that every course simply cannot be taught every year. This unfortunate reality is a product of many factors, including limited resources and faculty. As a result, many students find gaping holes in the Blue Book. For instance, the 1997-98 Blue Book does not offer courses in such prominant subjects as Civil War history or the works of William Faulkner.

The absence of such courses is an indication of the obstacles departments may face when crafting curriculum. While English DUS Langdon Hammer, BK '80, GRD '89, feels that his department's curricula is "very rich," he beleives that "this doesn't mean that we teach everything we could or should teach, and offerings vary from year to year, depending on who is available to teach them.... I would like to see students able to read Faulkner in a seminar--I'd like to see a number of things, and we'll keep trying to bring them about."

The history department is in the process of hiring a professor specializing in 19th century history, which is why it was unable to offer a course on the Civil War this year--what Johnston considers "the most easily identifiable weakness in the department right now." The history department is committed to teaching the course next year. "It is clearly a subject that we view as very important, one that should be offered almost annually," Johnston said.

When the time and the price are right

Part of the reason the African studies program has been able to make headway without a great deal of resistance is the relative wealth of its faculty resources. According to Carby, there are a significant number of Africanist scholars currently teaching at Yale. Most, however, are not part of the African and African-American studies department, but are instead spread out across different departments--history, English, sociology. The proposals that she and the other members of the subcommittee are working to create deal with the restructuring of the program to allow all of these scholars to contribute to the African studies major.

While any interdisciplinary major--such as international studies or African studies--requires that faculty be "loaned" from departments, they do not necessarily require the hiring of additional faculty or the allocation of substantial funding. The plans for the African studies program, when finalized, will involve redistribution rather than augmentation--a very important distinction. Conversely, in order to meet the demands of the South Asian Society, which petitioned the Provost's Office earlier this year to offer a course in Hindi, the University would have had to hire someone trained in that language, since none of Yale's current faculty members are qualified to teach the subject.

There are also times when the creation of new programs and courses is not considered to be in the best interest of the University, even if the resources are made available. For example, Yale did not accept Larry Kramer's grant for the establishment of an endowed chair in gay and lesbian studies. "Like the Larry Kramer situation, there are alumni, organizations, and so on, who will give money to the University to teach a certain subject," Gordon commented. "But there is the larger question of how well it fits with the University--its resources, libraries, collections, etc.--and with what the faculty can and wants to do.

"The fact that we don't teach it doesn't mean that we don't respect and value it, or that we won't teach it the next year or a few years down the road."

Making majors fit the `right' mold

Even when there is strong student interest in a particular area, it is not necessarily realized by the faculty or the curriculum. To some extent, all classes offered at Yale are a product of the philosophical outlook of individual departments. Therefore, the number and range of courses in the Blue Book depends in large part on what the department believes constitutes a proper education in that given discipline.

Although Hammer admits that many Yale students are interested in creative writing, Yale does not offer a creative writing major, and allows only two of the 14 required credits for the English major to come from creative writing courses. "Clearly, to become a good writer you must read good writing," Hammer said. "That is where the emphasis is in our major and where it is likely to remain." Students, who in this instance may believe that writing is as important as reading, are not always in agreement with the depart-ment's philosophical stance.

Similarly, the art department has never offered a course in ceramics, despite a fair display of student interest. The University does not currently have the equipment or the faculty qualified to teach the course, but DUS Lois Connor added that the reasoning for this absence goes beyond the basic lack of provisions. "[Ceramics] is more of a craft than an art," she said.

When students step in

Though such departmental decisions demonstrate that student input is most often secondary to that of a department and its faculty, the opinion of students in the curriculum building process is not wholly disregarded. The College Seminar Program, created in 1968, is one of the older venues for student participation in course selection. As stated in the Blue Book, it "serves several purposes, of which one of the most significant is to give students a forming role in the course choice laid out before them." Thus, college semi-nars, which are selected jointly by students and faculty, can often bring to Yale subjects that would have otherwise gone untaught. This system serves a compensatory function, such as making available a wider range of creative writing courses than are offered by the English department.

Further, many departments have increased efforts to systematize student input by actively soliciting student opinions and creating inter-departmental vehicles to address undergraduate concerns. Some have been more receptive to student initiative and more effective in meeting student requests than others.

A number of departments have formed student-based committees to discuss the undergraduate major, programs, and requirements. "We now have a Student Advisory Committee, which I'm very excited about," Johnston said, "because it's good to have a formal systemic means of involvement for the students." The committee is comprised of 10 to 12 upperclassmen history majors and meets monthly. Senior essay requirements and seminars are the highest priority at the moment, but Johnston added that there will be a strong focus placed on course offerings in the near future.

Some departments, like electrical engineering, are even more receptive to student opinions, holding regular open houses, where students discuss relevant matters with the faculty. Because the department is small, its meetings are also occasionally held in conjunction with the other engineering and applied science programs and departments, allowing for a more diverse interplay between faculty members and the student body.

Perhaps most commendable, however, is Maurrasse's dedicated method of interaction with his students. "I have relatively close relationships with my students," he explained. "One-on-one conversations are quite valuable."

Course reviews are also an important means for students to express their opinions about the content and teaching of courses. "The faculty do take the information that students hand back seriously, of course only to the extent that the students haven taken the review seriously," Electrical Engineering DUS Lou Guido said. "The course evaluation process has to be give and take."

The environment of the history department has been especially hospitable to student initiative. "We have within the department an individual tutorial program where a professor will agree, and many of them do, to meet with students about a certain subject," Johnston said. "It's a way to design your own course outside the Blue Book." Often if there is repeated success within this system, the department tries to hire lecturers or incorporate the subject matter into seminars. Students also have the more unconventional option of applying to design their own major. This solution disqualifies them from receiving awards or honors in their major, yet it offers a viable alternative for those genuinely dissatisfied with the Blue Book's majors and programs.

When the department fails

Last October, when a President's Committee assembly was called to examine the undergraduate art program, Richard Lytle, DUS at the time, called a meeting of all junior and senior art majors. Zina Deretsky, CC '98, thought students would benefit most if they organized themselves before the meeting; she started an e-mail list, summarized her fellow students' arguments, and submitted a list of concerns and suggestions to the art department.

The list addressed issues of faculty accessibility; expressed the need for new classes, such as ceramics and realistic 3-D modeling; called for the restructuring of existing courses; commented on financial matters--the lack of studio space, equipment, and the faculty cap; and demanded a means for reviewing courses and professors. "In three years of taking art class here, I had not a single evaluation given to me," Deretsky said. "But I think this changed after we talked to Professor Lytle."

And although progress in the art department has been relatively minimal, the circumstances surrounding the situation illustrate the trend for increased student initiative in the area of curriculum building. "There are areas where we hope our art department can improve," Deretsky said. "I feel that there are several ways we [students] can take action."

"When students have thought something through carefully and put in a great deal of time and commitment, of course the faculty is going to be in support of them," Carby said. Unfortunately, however, students seeking change in different departments have found varying degrees of success--most have not seen progress as notable as that within the African studies program.

Although the program's fate is still undecided, students of every major can only hope that the past year's developments with African studies will prove to be a promising sign of things to come.

Graphic by Josiah Leighton

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