STANFORD DOCUMENTS
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Western culture would be less complex and in some respects better.
But the legacy of the ancient and medieval world is still with us.
There is no need to despair that the contrasts, influence, and
interactions of non-Western cultures on Western culture will be lost
or neglected. Knowledgeable and skillful teaching can introduce
references to parallel or analogous ideas and institutions in cultures
other than our own when the material requires them. This can be
done without the pretense or pretentious claims that the course in
Western culture has or can be transformed .into a course in world
culture.
The Stanford Senate should take the organization or reorgani–
zation of the course in Western culture in its own hands, and ap–
point a committee, consisting of outstanding scholars primarily in
the humanities from the Stanford faculty, to recommend the ap–
propriate course of study in this area for its elite student body.
- Sidney Hook
April
1, 1988. Ending a two-year struggle that pitted
students against the faculty and faculty members against each other,
Stanford University Thursday threw out its Western culture re–
quirement in favor of a program promoting the study of women,
minorities and class issues.
The Faculty Senate voted 39-4 in favor of the new "Cultures,
Ideas and Values" requirement. Five professors abstained .
"The change is a substantial improvement," said Stanford Uni–
versity President Donald Kennedy.
Beginning next fall, freshmen will take classes from the CIV
track to fulfill the first of eight breadth requirements .
It
will replace the current Western culture program, which was
branded as racist two years ago by the Black Student Union. The
resulting debate captured national attention.
After the Faculty Senate voted for the new CIV, a student ran
to the door to tell about 200 others waiting outside of the decision.
They cheered.
"We feel philosophically that the vote in favor of this was a vote
in favor of moving forward and progression ," said Black Student
Union chairman Bill King. "They voted for moving toward ethnic
studies, not teaching freshmen lies."
Students in the Western culture track, adopted by the Senate in
