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Articles by Larry Jackson
The End of Reading is a Choice
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson EMMA ASHER In 1954, Life magazine published an article celebrating Columbia University’s bicentennial, which included a quiz asking readers to identify authors studied in the Core Curriculum. There’s no way of knowing how many of Life’s readers could answer these questions, but it is striking that a mass-circulation magazine in the ’50s would assume its readers knew or aspired to know philosophers such as David Hume and Baruch Spinoza.
A Journey Through Hell
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson EMMA ASHER Midway through our Spring semester, I found myself in a conference room in the Core office with dozens of students and faculty, participating in a marathon reading of Dante’s Inferno. Some participants read in Italian, the rolling Rs and the rhythm of Dante’s terza rima holding all of us in thrall, whether we understood the language or not.
We Are the Future
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson EMMA ASHER Early last year, a Harvard faculty committee issued a sobering report that should prompt a national discussion about the future of higher education. The university’s Classroom Social Compact Committee described a culture of academic disengagement at Harvard, after conducting surveys and listening sessions involving hundreds of faculty and students.
This Was Not Written By a Machine
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson EMMA ASHER A friend recently asked me why we still assign papers now that students can use large language models like ChatGPT to produce them. “Aren’t papers obsolete?” he asked. “People don’t need to know how to ride horses now that we have cars.” It was the wrong analogy, I told him. Writing is a way of thinking, not a means for reaching your destination quickly.
Creating a Third Space
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson EMMA ASHER One day in late September, I found myself looking up at Plato’s name on Butler Library as protestors gathered at the Sundial, waving flags and chanting slogans that had become campus leitmotifs a few months earlier. Near them, on College Walk, a smaller group of counter-protestors waved their flags and used a bullhorn to drown out the chants of their opponents.
BLUETTI Power Station EB3A Review: A Camper’s Delight
Discover the BLUETTI Power Station EB3A — a camper’s delight with fast charging, solar capability, and 600W AC power. Perfect for outdoor and emergency use! Larry Jackson · Follow 9 min read · -- Ready for reliable power? Discover this system on Amazon I always thought of myself as the person who never quite got the hang of being outdoorsy, much less someone with the foresight to prepare for a power outage. That all changed when I got my hands on the BLUETTI Portable Power Station EB3A.
Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 300 Review
Discover the Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 300 — your essential companion for outdoor adventures, offering reliable power, convenience, and eco-friendly options. Larry Jackson · Follow 7 min read · -- Ready for reliable power? Discover this system on Amazon Let me tell you about the Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 300, a gadget that has become my trusty companion on countless outdoor adventures.
Between Facts and Wonder: Frontiers of Science
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson EMMA ASHER At first glance, Frontiers of Science, which Columbia College students are required to take in their first year, seems very different from the other courses in the Core Curriculum. First, there is its age. Launched in 2004, Frontiers is not only the youngest course in the Core, but also the only requirement added to the curriculum in this century. Then, there is its content.
Enemies, A Core Story
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson EMMA ASHER One of the questions that students grapple with in Literature Humanities is how to interrupt the endless cycles of revenge that we read about in ancient texts. In Homer’s The Iliad, Achilles feels pity for his enemy Priam long enough for the Trojan king to bury his son Hektor. Genesis ends with Joseph forgiving the deceitful brothers who sold him into slavery.
Literature Humanities and the Democratic Moral Imagination
This column is part of an ongoing series offering insight into the Core Curriculum. Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson Emma Asher Throughout the United States, universities are eliminating programs that they consider impractical, particularly those in the humanities, such as literature and philosophy.
Thou Has Conquered, Oh Thou Baptists
We are nearly all Baptists now in American Christianity. According to legend, Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, having failed to suppress Christianity, at his death uttered: “Thou has conquered, oh thou Galilean.” Nobody has ever tried to suppress Baptists in America since colonial church establishments were overthrown. But the Baptists and the non-denominationals who are mostly Baptist in all but name have indeed conquered. Nearly every other branch of U.S. Christianity is shrinking.
The Core’s Great Community
Core Curriculum director Larry Jackson Emma Asher One of the joys of being the director of the Witten Center for the Core Curriculum is getting to delve into the history of this unique academic program, now in its second century. This past summer, I read articles about the Core by Columbia faculty that CCT published through the decades. They provided updates about the Core as well as summaries of the authors’ visions for the future of this ever-changing curriculum.
Ordinary Faithfulness
Early in the morning on April 10, 1969, four hundred police stormed into University Hall, Harvard’s main administration building. In under twenty minutes they forced out three hundred students using billy clubs and mace, dragging many occupants out by their hair. Nearly two hundred were arrested, and forty-one were seriously injured. The previous day, three hundred members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had occupied the building and issued demands.
The Rising of the Women
Sometimes a single protest can change the whole mood of a movement. There have been more than twenty thousand demonstrations all around the United States since Trump took office, far more than at any prior time in American history. Record numbers of people have marched and rallied—anywhere from ten to fifteen million have taken to the streets over the past year and half to express their disgust and anger with the racism, misogyny, corruption, and cruelty of this rogue Administration.
Reader's View: Former Duluthian bursting with pride
My former boss and friend, Max Oie, taught me his love of the sport of curling back in the 1970s. Although I was a long, long way from mastering it, I really enjoyed it. Max would have been so proud of what the Duluth Curling Club team accomplished.Living in Arizona and Duluth, having a gold medal for curling, and then the University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs winning the NCAA hockey Frozen Four, made me a happy former Duluthian.Larry K. JacksonChino Valley, Ariz.
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