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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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Session:         Page of 824

think we're--

Q:

What about the question of curriculum? Those discussions through the years? The general direction of the undergraduate education?

Heiskell:

Well, of course, that was the massive effort of Henry Rossovsky when he was dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. And he had proposed something that came to be known as the “core curriculum”. Essentially that meant that there were certain courses that you had to take over a period of four years, so that you'd be a widely-educated person rather than a narrowly-educated person. Well, that sounds all reasonable and easy, but when you have a faculty of--I think he's got 800 people, the faculty of Arts and Sciences--first to get them to agree to anything is difficult. When you talk core curriculum, you're automatically eliminating certain people from the core curriculum, certain professors from the core curriculum, so they're apt to be against it. It requires the most formidable political skill to bring this about. Because this is something that is decided by the faculty; this is not decided by the Corporation or the overseers or anything else. It's a faculty vote. And he used every bit of his charm, sly grace, to slowly fashion this over a period of three, four, five years, before he could dare bring it to a vote. And indeed, during that time, he was offered the presidency of Yale, which he turned down because he considered that he was so committed to this core curriculum program that it would be practically a case of treason if he were to leave, and that the core curriculum would die if he left. It was passed, and of course, as





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