The College Curriculum: A Reader

Mark Van Doren, the noted literary scholar, once remarked, «The college is meaningless without a curriculum, but it is more so when it has one that is meaningless.» Many current critics of undergraduate curricula in America assent to the crucial need for programmatic renewal in our colleges and universities. They bemoan the cookie-cutter sameness in far too many of them. The oddity is that U.S. colleges have long touted their «diversity» while largely holding fast to rather traditional pathways.…