Stanford’s Revised Curriculum

Your article regarding the major curriculum changes at Stanford University was very exciting (“Stanford Weathers the Storm,” by Anthony Day, Part A, May 3). It gives me hope and optimism that the young people we are training to be our future leaders will be thinkers who are attuned to “cultures, ideas, and values.”

It is quite amusing that the individuals who are most vociferous in their attacks on the changes at Stanford probably should have had a course such as this when they were going through college. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett helped to make a shambles of our education system. Bennett should be ashamed. Those on Wall Street, likewise, need to look into cleaning up their act before they throw stones.

We live in a world that is changing rapidly. If our young people are to be ready for the complexities of this “new world culture,” our universities need to make controversial and bold decisions regarding future curriculum. Let us hope that our government and big business will get rid of their myopic view of the world. Otherwise, we are in for a long period of intellectual and ethical stagnation.

RICK CHAVEZ

San Pedro