It’s time for a new core curriculum.

As most advertising for new students emphasizes, the core is a hallmark of the Columbia College Experience. The core to commencement initiative even made over $400 million. As it reaches its 100th anniversary, some changes are needed. Let’s face it: the core is simply too many classes. More than that, there are too many different names in it to keep track of.  My proposition is to compress it into one course that can still tie the community together. To fix the name problem I will make sure that every author, painter, and musician is tied thematically: introducing JS Hum. As the Core website says, “the factors that lead to the adoption of a text always include historical influence, the presentation of ideas of enduring importance, and the demonstrated ability of a text to provoke productive discussion.” I propose one more factor: the first two initials of anyone in it should be “JS.” Like the (former) classes of Lit Hum, Art Hum, and Music Hum, this class will also be taught in chronological order.

JS Bach 

Born in 1685 Germany, our first JS is taken from Music Hum. His music profoundly reshaped baroque music: JS Bach is seen as one of the greatest classical composers of all time. He worked as a church organist throughout his life, but would also perform in various courts: one of his skills was the ability to improvise on a subject in real-time. JS Bach composed in practically every Baroque musical style (with the one exception of opera), meaning that students of JS Hum could achieve a strong understanding of this period. While some of his children and grandchildren became later accomplished composers of subsequent periods, their names did not start with JS and they are therefore outside of the scope of this class: our understanding of music through this class will, unfortunately, end with him.

JS Mill 

Jumping forward fifty or so years and moving to the genre of political philosophy, the class would study On Liberty and Utilitarianism by JS Mill. In a nutshell, these books argue that one should only interfere with other people if those others would harm you and that generally, one should conduct themselves by trying to achieve the greatest happiness.  These ideas draw on earlier philosophers including Jeremy Bentham (who was close friends with JS Mill’s father) but have several key differences. JS Mill, for example, rejects Bentham’s idea that one can precisely calculate exactly how many pleasures and pains a given action would do. More importantly, Utilitarianism is written by someone who not only has a first name that begins with  J, but also a second name that begins with S. That in itself justifies his privileged position.

JS Sargent 

Moving into the art world, our next JS Sargent was considered the “leading portrait painter of his generation,” at least according to a cursory Google search. Many of his paintings can be seen throughout New York City, including at the Brooklyn Museum, the Met, and the New York Public Library. It looks like the Columbia Library even had an exhibition with a painting by JS at one point; I have no doubt that they could do it again.

JS Scott 

Our last JS rounds out the last of the four fields of study mandated by the core: literature. I can think of no better person than picking a “Bestselling Author of Steamy Romance” for the last leg of the curriculum. There are 18 books in her Billionaire’s Obsession Series, which should qualify it as an epic by any definition (a back of the envelope calculation that I did suggest that in total these books were around 800,000 words, meaning they are four times the length of the Illiad). Billionaire Unknown was even a New York Times bestseller, peaking at #7 on the Combined Print and E-book Fiction list in February 2017. The next book in the series will come out in December 2022. As the semester ends, then, the work that students will engage in will be truly contemporary.

books via Bwarchive