Many liberal arts schools have strayed from this foundation by demanding that their students distribute their courses into certain areas. Amherst, on the other hand, has always remained true to the idea of freedom in scholarly pursuit. Save for one semester-long First Year Seminar, the College does not regulate how many of what types of courses each student must take.
Until now, that is. Recently, the faculty debated a motion that would require all candidates for English honors to have taken a certain number of courses in a variety of different departments. Their rationale is no different from that of colleges that already have established a distribution requirement for all their students: that a demonstration of excellence in a broad range of the curriculum indicates the better student.
That being well-rounded and familiar with many different fields of study is inherently desirable is a notion that traces back to pre-Renaissance days. It should not, however, be the duty of liberal arts colleges to produce a well-rounded student; theirs is simply, and perhaps more honorably, to serve as a place of study for the scholar. Instituting a course distribution requirement that would govern what courses a student vying for English honors will take would only be the first step on the road to having a core curriculum for the entire College. Before we know it, every student will be required to take a specific number of courses in designated departments and areas.
Which, needless to say, would take all the joy out of studying. Being required to learn about something is different from wanting to learn about the same thing, especially not at the college level. The faculty may be worried that students will graduate with a narrow range of knowledge, but this does not seem to be a major problem here. If it were, perhaps a better alternative would be for advisors to ensure that they are advising their students to enroll in a broader selection of courses.
This issue will be brought to the attention of the faculty soon and we strongly encourage that they again vote it down.