John, how are the core curriculums established, and by what power center? Yale for instance? Where does the buck stop here?
I'm not certain what the specifics of the requirements are at Yale now. So I can't answer that.
The short, generic answer, however, is that the best way to ask the question is how would one go about strengthening core curriculums now. The answer to that question tells you both where the power is and why multicultural programs aren't even on the playing field.
The ever so brief answer is that there is no, save for a very few fairly small colleges, no institutional place at the center. There are departments, deans, provosts, etc. And there are curriculum committees. The latter are relatively powerless or their power varies on the basis of personal characteristics--a strong, well liked dean or provost, for instance, with strong convictions. But there is no place and no one institutionalized to care about the core. A place one can hold accountable for failures to get it right.
Budgets, for instance, are rarely, if ever allocated to some set of core institutions and always to departments and/or programs. |
