Why does John Harvard look so depressed and defeated? Is it the endowment? Is it the quality of the entering class? No! It’s the death of the course catalogue as we know it.
Following the Harvard Crimson, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Harvard University has eliminated printed course catalogues, faculty and student handbooks, and something called the “Q-Guide,” in favor of on-line versions of all these documents. The “Q-Guide,” which publishes summaries of teaching evaluations, is undoubtedly a grisly publication full of accurate, witty and devastating humor about our colleagues who work at an institution commonly known as the Northern Zenith. I am sure the Harvard faculty are glad to see the back of that one, Mary.
The move to web-based publishing is budgetary to be sure, but one administrator points out that the course catalogue will now be much more accurate than…