News Analysis: A Global Perspective

Talking about the University core curriculum usually doesn't generate a lot of buzz or excitement - unless you're talking about the history core, that is. In particular, this topic has been brought to the forefront once again after Oct. 12's hate speech incident as student leaders have reminded the community of the importance of diversity in education.

Coincidentally, the University core development committee met during the following week to discuss possible new directions for the history core. The history department has made some recommendations based on an examination of the current core courses offered as well as the overarching goal of the core. As it has in the past, officials said the core will continue to develop to reflect the changes of the increasingly global world.

While primary concerns revolve around the core being too Eurocentric, Marilynn Johnson, chairperson of the history department, said the core does offer courses with a more global perspective. "The problem is that we haven't done a good job advertising these courses," she said. "We need to improve on renaming and renumbering courses to make them more accessible."

Indeed, given the course catalog listings of the classes Johnson cited, it is easy to see how they could be construed as Eurocentric. With titles like "Europe in the Wider World," "Globalization," "Europe and the Atlantic World," and "The Rise of Europe in the World," the courses do not appear to espouse the global perspective they are meant to convey. That each course is also preceded by the heading "Modern History I" further conceals the courses' true objectives. Without reading the respective course descriptions, freshmen could easily overlook the opportunity to take a core course not solely framed within European history.

Consequently, these courses are historically under-enrolled, said Johnson. In fact, of the six "global" courses comprising the core, only four are offered this semester. On the other hand, that there are only six core courses of this nature - out of the 34 core courses - is pointed to as evidence that the core needs to be changed.

According to the history department Web site, the core "focuses particular attention on Europe because so much of modern history has been dominated by Europe and because Europe pioneered the crucial historical processes that the entire world has experienced." As a result, many of the so-called "global" courses are designed to give a history of the "relationship between Europe and the non-European world."

What Omolara Bewaji, UGBC co-director of academic affairs and A&S '07, who has met with faculty in the department to discuss possible changes, sees as needing improvement is the framework in which these courses are taught. "Analyzing a culture in the context of Europe is very different from analyzing a culture alone," she said.

One course that does just that - examining a non-European culture in its own right - is Asia in the World, she said. "It seems to be grounded in Asian history as opposed to being grounded in European history," said Bewaji.

While current core courses may focus primarily on Europe's history, Johnson said the department is trying to rewrite the course descriptions so they do not appear so Eurocentric. "They are out of date," she said. "Even people who teach European history are using a global perspective."

Indeed, Davarian Baldwin, associate professor in the history department, said it would be a "dangerous strategy" to teach European history and culture without talking about the far-reaching influences on non-European countries and people. "You can't talk about European history without how it was influenced and made possible by the rest of the world," he said. "To believe that ideals of democracy and freedom started in Europe and then spread to the rest of the world is wrong."

The American Revolution is nothing without first discussing Haiti, and understanding fascism in Europe is impossible without learning first about Namibia and Ethiopia, he said. "Even if we accept the myth of the self-contained world, you can't talk about the West without situating it in its influences by the larger world."

The answer, he said, is not in adding a week-long segment within a European course, or even adding new courses altogether; it is creating what he called a synthetic approach which would change the framework in which history is currently viewed.

"There is an idea that by engaging in multicultural studies you are diluting the standards of real scholarship," said Baldwin. "This is real scholarship. It is the direction we need."

Johnson said this is a direction in which the history department is trying to move, but that it would require training and "retooling" for current instructors. "We are trying to redirect the graduate students and post-docs who will be teaching these courses to get them comfortable with the non-European view," she said. "We are also having biweekly seminars in which different faculty come to share their approaches to teaching in this global perspective."

Besides the importance of instructing tomorrow's professors to incorporate world views, Johnson said the department is trying to "diversify areas of faculty expertise." The addition of two faculty members who specialize in Asian history, for example, are ways in which undergraduates will be exposed to non-European history. The department is looking to continue hiring these "world specialists," said Johnson.

But while retraining instructors in the global perspective is a priority, Johnson said the core courses will still "provide a foundation of knowledge of key developments in modern history that are important for any well-educated person to know." Certain events in Europe's history - in addition to their global relativism - will always be covered, as they form a basic foundation for subsequent modern history courses.

As the other UGBC co-director for academic affairs, Evan Henrich, A&S '07, has met with members of the history department with Bewaji and said he liked the general principle of having Boston College students grounded in basic well-rounded ideals, but he urged people to define what "well-rounded" means.

"It is very important to think of the philosophical processes affecting us today," he said. "My biggest question is the 'So what?' How do important events of Europe and other countries affect our modern world?"

He said that in his "Europe and the Americas" core course - one of the "global courses" - the main focus of the course was still Europe. "It really didn't do justice to the American side of the history, like a before-and-after examination of events. These courses that are supposedly global don't quite meet the ideal core course."

Bewaji has suggested including non-European courses that already exist in the core curriculum, or requiring that one semester of the core has to include a non-Eurocentric course. "While alternate views are included, the difference is that now they are supplemental, not fundamental," she said.

Baldwin, who taught at New York University previously, said the highly diverse student body demanded a more synthetic approach in the history core curriculum. "Eight years ago, I taught a course called 'Conversations of the West,' which dealt with two different time periods or areas." Greek and Roman history, for example, would be coupled with history of the greater Mediterranean region.

At Harvard University, students are required to take one semester of European history and one semester of non-European history - courses that analyze cultures completely independent of Europe.

BC's core was cited as "model for other universities" by an external review committee in 1996 for its combination of European histories with "newer concerns of world history." But despite the "global" courses offered and the required readings in other classes that explore global relationships on a larger scale, officials in the department have acknowledged the need to improve.

Whether this improvement will come through addition of new courses, new faculty, or even a more drastic restructuring of the core itself is up for debate.

Regardless of how the core develops, however, Baldwin stressed the importance in making diversity of focus mandatory. "If you teach European history without connections in the world, you are learning bad history."