All academic institutions struggle to decide which subjects are essential for students to learn. At Hopkins, there are distribution requirements designed to ensure that students take classes in certain areas, even if they are not going to major in it. At Harvard, students are required to choose from a pool of core classes, spanning a wide variety of areas, including Foreign Cultures, Historical Studies, Literature and Arts, Moral Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning, Science and Social Analysis.
In recent years, Harvard has sought to make its core more relevant to the real world. A six-person Task Force on General Education was created to evaluate the core curriculum, and in October they came out with a preliminary report. The report advocated the creation of seven additional core requirements including Reason and Faith.
"I think 30 years ago people would have said that religion is not something that everyone needs to know," Louis Menand, co-chairman of the Task Force, told The Wall Street Journal. "But today, few would disagree that religion is supremely important to modern life."
College administrators say Harvard's move will affect other colleges.
