MIT Core Changes Proposed

As blogged by Inside Higher Ed, MIT is proposing changes to the core to shrink the mandatory courses and allow a set of choices for the remaing core classes. This is an attempt “to balance rigor and flexibility,” which I encourage and applaud. Why is flexibility important? Scientific and engineering progress cannot be made along the same lines as previous progress has been. By allowing students to choose some aspects of the core from among a set, the core is effectively broadened. Why is rigor important? This question may seem like a joke, but it is all too common that flexibility is supposed to mean a loosening of constraints, when it fact it is a broadening of them. All courses should be taught with rigor, and that rigor should be publicly as well as peer reviewed.

This is precisely how the proposal is being taken by MIT President, as she has clearly stated:

>MIT has a tremendous institutional tradition of innovation. The changes to our core curriculum proposed by the Task Force on the Undergraduate Educational Commons respond creatively to changes in science, technology and the world around us and will ensure that MIT continues to educate the leaders the world needs.

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October 16, 2006 • Posted in: Education, Policy

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