Social Studies and ‘The Harvard Problem’

In 1960, 18 sophomores were admitted into the nascent Social Studies program, an honors-only, interdisciplinary concentration that prided itself on, among many things, the selectivity of its students. Forty-seven years later, Social Studies’ sophomore class has expanded to 144 students, yet this idea of selectivity—of Social Studies as “the Harvard of concentrations,” as one freshman called it—has persisted.

Although Harvard’s faculty members and students rarely shy from selectivity or prestige, the Social Studies of 2007 finds itself in a difficult position that questions whether the concentration’s elite status is valuable—or even merited—anymore.

Social Studies’ reputation is historically rooted in its limited enrollment, its demanding sophomore tutorial, and its strict requirement for a thesis. Director of Undergraduate Studies Anya Bernstein said, “We were designed under the implication that not many students would do this.”

Yet according to Buttenwieser University Professor Stanley Hoffmann, one of the five founders of Social Studies, the concentration carefully chose students during its initial years less in order to select the best of Harvard’s crop and more because they worried that most students at Harvard could not complete an interdisciplinary thesis.

As time has passed, though, the increased academic abilities of Harvard students have made these factors almost irrelevant, Hoffmann said. “Today, the College has changed. I do not think there is a particular need academically to gate-keep the concentration anymore.”

Social Studies’ sense of itself as a particularly rigorous academic specialty has nevertheless lived on, a fact of which today’s students are only too aware. Bernstein said, “Social Studies has a cache to it, and some seniors have told me that they didn’t know what to do and they chose Social Studies because of its prestige.” She added, “Social Studies is a major commitment. We reject a few students—a very few—because of their academic record, but it’s really an issue of students’ ability to commit to the concentration.” Committee Chair and Thomson Professor of Government Richard Tuck also said, “We need to emphasize the difficulties of Social Studies to maintain a relatively elite group.”

Regardless of whether or not Social Studies is substantially more difficult than other concentrations, it has the option of gate-keeping with criteria such as “over-commitment” because of its lack of available resources; there are simply not enough faculty members, nor is the market for lecturers large enough, for the concentration to expand.

According to Tuck, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has been as generous as possible with Social Studies, given FAS’s strained budget for all concentrations. And Dean of the Social Sciences David M. Cutler ’87 said that he and FAS “are committed to funding Social Studies in such a way so that they can function as well as they currently do.”

But being “committed” to the status quo still means that many students who want to concentrate in Social Studies are unable to—180 applied last year for 144 spots. Next fall, because of the College’s delayed concentration choice, the number of applicants is expected to increase even further, as the concentration’s famous tutorial will be open to all sophomores for the first time.

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that freshmen this spring have been provided with an odd and at times disturbing message from the concentration: Social Studies is probably not right for you.

Charlie J. Wells ’10, who is Crimson news editor, said, “At the small information session, I came away with the idea that I shouldn’t do Social Studies if I could do something else in the social sciences.” He also added, “The meeting was oddly scary and didn’t actually describe the details of the concentration.”

Another freshman considering Social Studies, Anooj R. Kansara ’10, said in an e-mail, “It seemed as though the Social Studies department was emphasizing the need for new concentrators to come in with a set focus in mind. To those who are weighing their options between the social sciences, this pressure feels, in part, to be a type of scare tactic used to intimidate the many potential concentrators who are not yet set in a specific track.”

And James M. Larkin ’10, who is a Crimson editorial editor, said, “The Advising Fortnight events put the fear of God in us when the conversation turned to acceptance rates. It was made to seem difficult to satisfy Social Studies’ stringent guidelines.”

As a happy Social Studies concentrator myself, I was disheartened both to see Social Studies’ presentation in person and to hear about separate and repeated incidents of freshmen receiving a negative message from the concentration.

Presumably, Social Studies uses these tactics because it is so difficult to communicate to freshmen what exactly the concentration is, and Social Studies does not have the space for students to dabble and then switch—Social Studies needs, more than any other concentration, for students to get it right the first time. Bernstein said, “The process [of switching concentrations] is painful for students and it is painful for us; I want to stress to freshmen a need for self-reflection, not a need for fear.”

But by couching “self-reflection” in terms of the concentration’s supposed need for extraordinary commitment and intellectual rigor, Social Studies is working against its goal of only attracting concentrators who actually want to do Social Studies, and not students who are drawn by the concentration’s prestige.

Because of the nature of Harvard life, Social Studies’ negative message does not push freshmen toward finding their inner-academic interests, but rather it instantiates Social Studies’ prestigious image as the “Harvard of concentrations” and fascinates students for the wrong reasons.

Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences Tommie Shelby, who has taught Social Studies 10 during two of the past three years, also acknowledged that students are likely attracted by Social Studies’ reputation: “That’s a Harvard problem. People are competitive and do the thing that brings the most prestige—it goes with the territory.”

Bernstein said, “Who can blame freshmen for choosing a prestigious concentration in the spring of their first year? It’s a very high-pressured situation, and an easy decision is to follow the prestige.”

The solution is to rid Social Studies of its dubiously warranted prestige and image as an intellectual haven within the College—something that Social Studies is loathe to do. When questioned about Social Studies’ relation to other concentrations, Bernstein reiterated the difficulty of the concentration and the need for students to reflect on what they are committing to. Tuck said, “I think Social Studies’ reputation is good for the concentration—that kind of self-confidence is good for work. People want to be a part of an interesting group.”

Harvard students understandably gravitate toward the promise of an “interesting group” and an intellectual challenge, but that is part of the reason why Social Studies has received so many concentrators who do not fit with the concentration. In recent years, Social Studies has had one of the worst dropout rates from its concentration. This year’s group of graduating seniors began with 136 concentrators; only 90 will graduate today.

And of all the freshmen that I spoke to, none said that Social Studies’ message of difficulty would stop them from trying the concentration. Jessica G. Ranucci ’10, another potential concentrator, said, “People don’t think they’ll get in, but that hasn’t deterred them from what I have heard.”

Thankfully, current plans within Social Studies are aimed at addressing this dilemma. Tuck said, “The long term aim is reworking the concentration so that we are clear as to why Social Studies is a separate concentration within the social sciences.” Then, hopefully, the communication between Social Studies and freshmen will simply focus on the necessary interests of a potential concentrator—such as a desire to learn social theory and apply that to a to-be-discovered focus area—and not how the concentration is especially difficult or special.

If Social Studies stops promoting its questionable status as “the Harvard of concentrations,” the past may repeat itself. When FAS voted to expand limited enrollment concentrations in 1977, applicants to Social Studies dropped considerably in the following years.

At the time, Paul C. Martin ’52, then Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences and chairman of the Task Force on Concentrations that proposed the expansion of Social Studies, told The Crimson, “If the application decrease is due to the loss of Social Studies’ ‘elite’ status, it’s all for the better.”

Thirty years later, Social Studies would do well to heed Martin’s words.

Andrew D. Fine ’09, a Crimson associate editorial chair, is a social studies concentrator in Eliot House.