Fewer is more

Last fall, I managed to evoke a rather passionate (negative) response in this column with my suggestion that Columbia undergraduates forget about majors. Since I regard evoking passion as one of the most important roles of a university professor, I thought I might follow up that success with another related recommendation: minimize the number of courses you take.

I don’t actually expect this suggestion to find a more receptive audience. But “Editorial Opinion” shouldn’t strive unduly for popularity. So here’s my latest, modest proposal: Take four courses per term, and add a fifth just often enough to graduate.

Last Fall I offered my fantasy reform plan for redressing the silo-ed mentality that departments and majors support—create a division of “none-of-the-above” to compete with the traditional humanities, social sciences, and sciences divisions. Here I suggest another fantasy plan: classes will meet three times a week for ninety minutes each session, and students will take a maximum of four per term.

I can just hear the howls of protest:

“You expect me to go to class five or six days a week instead of three or four?” Yes, actually. I imagine a truly engaging undergraduate education to be a more or less full time job.

“You expect me to sit through 90 minutes of a boring lecture?” Here the answer is different: No, I don’t. This class schedule, however, might allow faculty to get away from the stultifying and well-established dysfunctionality of the lecture format and actually engage students in learning.

This proposal would, of course, also solve the problem of too few, overcrowded classrooms. It would solve the problem of large classes and of students being bumped from classes. It would solve the problem of distracted students with no time to do assignments or reflect on what they are learning, no time to integrate new knowledge into their lifelong intellectual toolkit. It would also no doubt cut down on rampant academic dishonesty. And it would allow joy back into the process of learning.

So, clearly, it will not be adopted. It is inconsistent with the ethos of the modern corporate university. It’s not efficient. It’s not consonant with utility-maximizing consumers (formerly known as students). It is not consistent with the faculty reward structure which requires minimizing teaching “loads” and maximizing research “opportunities” away from the classroom (the notion of “teaching opportunities” is, apparently, an oxymoron). What a crazy idea.

Several years ago, I visited a fourth-grade classroom in the city and gave a talk on astronomy. The students were transfixed, and as soon as I had finished, they bombarded me with questions. Thirty minutes later, they were still at it; the last ones had to be physically removed by their shirt collars from the auditorium.

I took the bus back to Columbia in time for my 4 p.m. first-year seminar. We were to discuss a fascinating article on the “technicolor brain,” an extremely clever experiment in which the neural pathways of vision had been illuminated in unprecedented detail by genetic manipulation of neuron expression in a rabbit. I walked into the seminar, took one look at the overworked, decidedly detached, and single-mindedly goal-oriented class who had no questions, and asked “Why aren’t you more like fourth graders?”

Unfortunately, my students dutifully responded to this question. I will not recount the depressing litany of reasons here except for the final one: “Professor Helfand, you don’t understand; I’m paying for a degree, not for an education.”

And since you are paying a lot, it makes perfect economic sense, as the ultimate rational consumers, to take as many courses as possible. It’s just too bad that this doesn’t add up to an education.

The author is the chair of the Department of Astronomy.

Each Friday, a professor will share scholastic wisdom readers won’t find in lectures. Suggestions regarding which professors to feature are welcome.