04, no. 3 (March 1973): 57-59
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INNOVATIONS IN THE CURRICULUM OF THE CENTER FOR ARTS AND LITERATURE AT PRESCOTT
COLLEGE
Peter Horwath
PRESCOTT COLLEGE is a new, four-year private school. It is the oldest unit of the Prescott Institutions. The other units are The Schole and The Institute. Experimentation, innovation, and quality are the principles under which the Prescott Institutions operate.
Prescott College has some 350 students, 90% coming from outside of Arizona. (The immediate aim is to increase the student body to 600.) There are approximately 45 faculty members. The college is divided into 5 academic centers: (1) The Center for Modern Civilization, (2) The Center for Man and Environment, (3) The Center for Systems and Sciences, (4) The Center for the Person, and (5) The Center for Arts and Literature, the program for which I am largely responsible.
Prescott College is a relatively expensive place to attend and an even more expensive place to maintain. (Of the $6,500 a student costs the College per year, the student contributes $3,200.) In developing its curriculum, the Center for Arts and Literature (as well as the entire college) had to keep this fact in mind. First of all, to develop a college along traditional lines with majors in a host of disciplines would have simply overtaxed the financial capacity of the college. Then, there seemed and seems to be no real need to add another “Oberlin College” type of institution to the American educational scene. And it is questionable whether private sources—in view of the superabundance of good traditional colleges and the oversaturation of the market with their products, and also in view of pressing social and economic needs—would be willing to finance a new liberal arts college along traditional lines. And finally, Prescott College as a traditional school could hardly have been able to attract for the years to come a significant number of first-rate students, since places like Oberlin College, Pomona College, or almost any state university could have done a better job academically.
Consequently, in developing a curriculum, the Center for Arts and Literature had to aim at a learning experience which was qualitatively sound, and at the same time, relevant in its uniqueness. Size and finances demanded a curriculum which through a minimum of means would provide a maximum of intellectual growth and extension. Universality and maturity became the key words. First of all, the Center for Arts and Literature had to commit itself to one major that would reflect the search for universality. Obviously, a study program in English, French, or history would not qualify for consideration, nor would a hodgepodge of more or less unrelated figure and period courses from various disciplines and cultures. Only an interlacing (also with the subject matter of the other Centers), meaningful, and relevant studium generale could be considered, and we came up with such a program. By introducing “Directed Studies” (supervised individual work) and “Independent Studies” (with 1/4 of the student's learning process off campus) as an almost mandatory feature, we succeeded In offering indirectly—and at no additional financial cost, and without affecting the validity of our curricular structure—a way toward specialization for those who wanted it. Moreover, through our insistence on socioacademic mobility we are hoping to retain the student's mental mobility and to avoid possible intellectual sterility and emotional infantilism.
Following is a quotation from our catalogue entry:
The Center for Arts and Literature is concerned with essences of human existence, its enduring concerns, recurrent issues, and basic experiences. These are explored primarily through world literature. In its wealth of expression, ideas, and forms, literature transcends the particular, and reaches for the universal. It encompasses the religious, philosophical, social, and aesthetic expressions of man. It includes not only poetry, drama, and fiction, but also writings from other fields of human endeavor.
In pursuing these concerns, the Center develops the student's judgment, taste and will to act. It encourages the acquisition of sufficient knowledge and experience to make him aware of the recurrent problems of the past. The knowledge of how other cultures and ages have responded, emotionally, intellectually and actively, to essential concerns helps contemporary man to understand himself and his function in life, to grasp the urgency of contemporary problems, and to anticipate the likely path of future events.
A well-rounded person experiences the world and himself in as full and productive a context as possible. Accordingly, the Center encourages off-campus study, field experiences, involvement in public life, and participation in the arts.
For a student with broad cultural and literary interests, the Center offers a major in Literature. However, a student may graduate from the Center without a major. If a certain degree of specialization is desired, it may be attained through Directed and/or Independent Studies. Arrangements with other institutions here or abroad may be made through the Center.
Course structure in the Center is in two levels. Level I comprises the courses designed primarily for students who need more background and perspective in certain fundamental concerns. Level II stresses theme seminars or ‘encounters’ wherein certain ideas and essences of human existence are explored in more depth. On this level, the Center also encourages Directed Studies by which the student, in consultation with a faculty member, pursues some individual research project. Independent studies conducted off campus are likewise encouraged.
Please note our definition of “Literature”: It “encompasses the religious, philosophical and aesthetic expressions of man. It includes not only poetry, drama, and fiction, but also writings from other fields of human endeavor.” To achieve our goals, the following steps were taken: (1) elimination of purely “academic” information, as for example, many of the details pertaining to an author's secondary works, or to his private life; (2) selection of the best in world literature; (3) omission of period and figure courses; (4) synthesizing and interlacing subject matters that reflect enduring concerns; (5) inclusion of the concept of “history-of-the-future”; (6) encouragement to spend some time at another institution; (7) freedom to pursue valid research projects (industry, commerce, foreign experience, etc.); and (8) inclusion of non-Western cultural elements.
We set up the following guidelines for our advanced courses (individually and/or collectively): (1) they had to be universal and supranational in scope; (2) they had to reflect directly or indirectly the enduring concerns of every period; (3) they had to cover one or more major work of every great author (poet, philosopher, historian, etc.); (4) they had to deal with every major idea and theme; (5) they had to introduce every major archetypal character; (6) they must consider the esthetic, as well as the spiritual experiences of men; (7) they should use a comparative approach to turning points in the history of mankind; and (8) they should introduce history through the eyes of major historians.
Since Western culture largely reflects the experience and wisdom of a special social class and of middle-aged men, and since the young adult of eighteen, as a total being, is able to experience only the moment, we decided that the starting point must be “U.S.A.—1971,” that is, from the esthetics of Rock to Gregorian chant, from Oh Calcutta ! to Oedipus Rex , from Jesus Christ Superstar to Augustine, and from Portnoy's Complaint to The Book of Job . Progress proceeds from sensation to conceptualization and ends with understanding. In order to convey the spirit of past ages (Hebrew, Judeo-Roman, Judeo-Manichaean), we decided to have scholars of orthodox persuasion lecture on courses dealing with the Bible and the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Before attempting to give you an idea how such courses may look on paper, worked out in detail, permit me to spend a little more time on the general curricular structure. In terms of time, 1/2 of our courses deal with the past, 1/4 reflect present concerns, 1/4 deal with future possibilities. In terms of “course structure,” 1/4 of our offerings are in the form of Basic Courses (e.g. “Perspectives”), 1/4 of our courses are conceived as seminars (“Encounters”: The Literary Experience 1/3, Interlacing Experiences 2/3), 1/4 of the academic experience is set aside for Directed Studies (figure and period courses; special courses), and 1/4 for Independent Studies (research, creativity, and/or study at another institution). And finally, in terms of subject matter, 1/3 to 1/2 of the study experience deals directly or indirectly with the American tradition as part of the human condition, and considerable time and energy are devoted to the non-Western experience.
I believe that our approach has succeeded to a large degree in achieving cohesion and universality, and that our interest in enduring concerns and recurring themes is a valid one. If one were to object to our program as being dilettantish, I would reply that specialization should take place in graduate school, that on the undergraduate level the essential should be made available, that as many doors to the universe as possible should be opened, and that the traditional curriculum—since it is geared to producing professionals, specialized men and women—also reflects a form of dilettantism, for it pretends to present the whole of man, but actually leaves him parochial. (Moreover, since the job market does not currently favor the traditional liberal arts education product, say, an English teacher, Prescott College has another reason for aiming at a different type of curriculum.)
Again, we synthesized and hoped to come out with essentials and isomorphs. We are interested in conveying what is, what was, and what always will be. In this sense we are ahistorical, pre-nineteenth century.
Cui bono ? Especially for students outside the liberal arts who want an all-encompassing cultural background in the humanities (Western and non-Western); and those who are interested in an organic and broad humanistic education and who, being affluent, do not want to specialize toward a profession (e.g. a teacher of history), who do not want to specialize before graduate school, and who are primarily interested in recurring issues and concerns.
The success or failure of an arrangement such as ours depends on (1) the type of faculty, (2) the kind of student, and (3) the location. The instructors must be flexible and capable of overcoming their need to specialize and to move within a few restricted categories. The student must be highly intellectual and an independent sort of creature (some courses are beneficial almost exclusively to older students), and the location should be where there are plenty of stimuli coming from every sphere of life. Ideally, our program should function best at a large and exciting university rather than in a bucolic setting.
By way of a postscript, I would like to add that this last learning experience may take place in The Schole, where selected students share seminars with VIP's from business, industry, and government. These seminars may take place on the campus of Prescott College or abroad. They deal with such essences as “Equality, Liberty, Justice,” “Violence, Revolution, War,” “Religion in Confrontation,” and the “Foreign Experience.” By snaring such seminars with executives, students will become realistically acquainted with the practical issues of the human condition. Thus, like Faust, the student leaves the narrow confinement of largely abstract and idealistic learning and becomes actively aware of the myriad of issues in concrete situations and their interrelation; issues which recall the past, reflect the present, and anticipate the future. Education, then, is no longer only thinking the good, but also understanding it, and doing it. Viewed in this light, the experience The Schole offers comes in some ways close to the intentions of Plato's Academy.
A paper presented at the Second Annual Regional Convention of the National Association for Humanities Education, 6 November 1971. Professor Horwath is Chairman of the Center for Arts and Literature at Prescott College, and Director at The Schole.
© 1973 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 04, no. 3 (March 1973): 57-59 |
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