Alex King (Social Sciences-Anthropology)
28/02/08
The core of a university education is learning how to learn, learning how to identify the
important problems and formulate the right questions. Only after that can one hope to come
up with useful answers. The essential transferable skill underpinning an honours MA in
anthropology are the skills involved in reading difficult texts and writing cogent papers.
This pedagogy is shaped by my biography. My academic skills were founded in the course of
a rigorously academic education in a rather average public high school in an American
smallish town.
consolidated during four years at Reed College, a liberal arts college in Portland,
Oregon
equal to undergraduate education anywhere, including Harvard or Cambridge,
supposedly the top two universities in the world
Reed College is intensely academic. All first year students take a foundational course in the
humanities, “Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages,” which starts with Homer’s Iliad, covers
Greek philosophers and playwrites, Roman historians and poets, Medieval sagas, and ends
with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Lectures cover relevant topics in history, politics, art, music,
economics and so on. Students read and discuss primary texts in tutorials of 15 or less, and
they write half a dozen papers over the course of the year.
Students in the natural sciences beyond the first year move to reading key articles in the
current journals and conducting their own experiments and guided inquiry. Students in the
humanities and social sciences learn primarily through reading primary texts and key
secondary sources (not textbooks), discussing them in small classes, and writing term
papers. Every student must produce an original senior thesis under the supervision of a
member of staff.
There are two other Reed alums at Aberdeen in addition to me with Ph.D.s from Yale and
Oxford.
Despite (or because of?) a half-humorous motto of ‘atheisim, communism, and free love’, the
academic curriculum is very conservative: English literature, history, sociology, biology,
chemistry, physics, mathematics, art history.
Reed produces a lot of Ph.D.s through those places, as well as Chicago, Columbia, and
other top 10 universities. It has no professional programs in law, medicine or education, but
many Reedies go onto postgraduate work in those areas for professional careers. Reedies
also number among the most successful in the business world, including Steve Jobs of Apple
Computer and Peter Norton of Norton Utilities, as well as many other less famous
millionaires in the tech and business world. Many Reedies are in Washington running the
country while the famous guys make speeches.
Reed College is a very different institution from Aberdeen and I don’t mean to hold it up as a
model for our reforms. It does provide a very important point. A curriculum grounded in the
critical engagement with traditional disciplinary subjects provides the best foundation for
success in whatever career. My wife has a degree in Russian literature from Reed, her thesis
was a translation and analysis of Silver Age symbolist poetry. She took that to the School of
Architecture at UC Berkeley and after we moved to Aberdeen she was snapped up by a local
architect recently re-locating from London who was not impressed with local graduates. She
can think, speak, and write.
We must not let market research or supposed needs or demands of industry (or worse,
companies HR directors) guide us in curriculum reform. We need to ensure that our
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Alex King (Social Sciences-Anthropology)
28/02/08
graduates will be equipped with the intellectual skills to adapt to the unexpected, the ‘needs
and demands’ of industry and society that one understands or even has an inkling of.
This is done by cultivating a work ethic of studying hard,
encouraging an intellectual independence through critical engagement with important
issues and scholars, whether in anthropology of biochemistry.
developing communication skills through writing and re-writing papers and the
ongoing task of speaking in small or large groups (tutorials, labs, even lectures).
Bring back rhetoric?
Must have a library that is more than a pretty face, a pleasant building. It must be full of good
books and provide easy access to important journal articles. The anthropology department
(just a small part of the school of social sciences) spends up its book budget by Christmas,
and we could easily spend 10x as much money as we do--mostly on books directly relevant
to current teaching and research, but also some journals that we would like but can’t afford.
My Ph.D. is from the University of Virginia, also called “Mr. Jefferson’s University” for its
founder and architect (physically and intellectually), Thomas Jefferson (author of US
Declaration of Independence and 3rd President).
Virginia is a public university with a college of liberal arts and sciences, schools of business,
law, medicine, engineering, education and the usual array of undergraduate, postgraduate,
and professional degrees and certificates. about 13,500 undergrads and 6,500 postgraduate
students (including law and medicine, which are postgrad degrees in America), so a little
bigger than Aberdeen but similar in many ways. It seems to be ranked at 110 by the Times
Higher
Library: 5.1 million books, Expenditures of over 14 million pounds, 229 regular staff
supplemented by 18 volunteers, 5 docents, and 375 student assistants. Library staff speak
39 languages.
I belabour the point about library provision because of Jefferson’s vision of a modern
university, which would produce an educated democratic electorate and graduates useful for
the society and economy of the United States was grounded on a value placed on an
education where students are ‘given a list of books and some indication of the order in which
to read them,’ to quote TJ.
Virginia provides some interesting models for incremental changes to curriculum and/or
student advising at Aberdeen. UVA has one of the highest graduation rates in 4 years for
African Americans in the nation, a demographic often associated with economic and social
disadvantage, especially in Virginia. Many of our students also have spotty educational
backgrounds.
Writing requirement. Virgina has a summer orientation for first year students. Students come
in smaller groups well before term time (and fall orientation) to get assist the transition from
high school to university. I think there may also be some mandatory academic skills
remediation for students with weaknesses in one or two areas but a record deserving of
university admission. It also includes a universal entrance writing examination for placement
into ENG101 (basic expository composition) or ENG114 (optional advanced comp for
students that test out of ENG101.
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Alex King (Social Sciences-Anthropology)
28/02/08
Several interlocking systems of advising: association deans (mixture of residential colleges
and groups of students of special academic status - e.g. Echols scholars (high academic
achievers - 8.5% of arts and sciences), Academic advisors, special advising deans (similar to
Honours Advisers here), Directors of Undergraduate programmes (similar to HoD), as well
as a learning centre (better resourced than Aberdeen’s).
What I would like to see in Curriculum Reform
Maintenance of the Scottish Honours MA - I left a university in sunny CA already organized
in a way similar to the ‘Melbourne Model” because I was attracted to the distinctiveness of
Aberdeen as it now exists
specialization nice in single honours, good flexibility through joint honours programs and the
sub-honours programme
Distinctive from the way North American degree programs are structured, English, and other
Europeans. We need to do a better job of attracting more foreigners to study here as Scottish
demographic declines.
Some changes to consider
University level mandatory writing course - expository composition or perhaps a year-long 1st
year course in humanities - College of Wooster (GLCA exchange partner) has first year
seminar - this is intensive work for staff - teaching writing means a lot of reading papers and
discussing them individually with students. Themes are broad, and can include
‘environment’, ‘citizenship’, bio-ethics, need not be just ‘artsy’ themes.
Increase provision of foreign languages, especially Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, to
name some of my favourites. Syrotinsky and Fennel made an excellent case here earlier.
foreign language requirement - easy to start at top, Most NA universities require reading
competence in 1 or 2 foreign languages to earn a Ph.D. - but if we impose requirements, we
must provide the means - also good for undergraduates, requirements could be introduced
as well. Even intermediate foreign language skills greatly expand one’s opportunities.
The current system can be made more flexible with little more than bureaucratic changes for example, cross listing courses, which is common in NA. For example, anthropology
benefits from having colleagues in Hispanic Studies and Religious Studies teaching very
anthropological courses. They have colleagues in history teaching courses relevant to their
subjects. Anthropology teaches some courses that could be cross-listed with other
programmes in language, archaeology, etc. - This would work much easier if Schools were
not shacked so closely to FTEs in devolved budgets - that discourages Interdisciplinarity
more than anything else
A designated degree is often awarded as a consolation prize to students washing out of
Honours, but it can be more than that, especially if paired with a professional degree - anthro
ordinary degree in 3 years followed by a 2-year degree in law or business could be useful, for
example.
Reform must be slow, incremental, and strengthen what is already good, and our Honours
MA should remain at the core of our teaching provision.
-recognized - a first-class honours MA means something very impressive throughout
Britain and the world, anything new will take time to mean anything
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