“Know Thyself” is a core tenet of Hamilton’s mission. In an effort to cultivate a more autonomous educational experience, the College has an open curriculum. Despite the intent of this design, institutional overreach impedes upon the goal of self-discovery and independence on the Hill.
While Hamilton’s open curriculum does spare students from certain tedious distribution requirements, it also comes with some fine print. Open is a somewhat misleading description of a curriculum that, unlike most schools, requires even Seniors to gain signatures from teachers before adding or dropping a class, and compels students to complete three gym courses as a requisite for graduation. The College might justify its requirement for signatures as an organizational measure. To students, however, it feels like a hurdle to academic independence. Additional academic requirements, such as capping the number of courses one can take in a single department — 15 courses — further damages student autonomy and growth.
Similarly, Hamilton often defends its unusual and outdated fitness requirement as a measure to promote physical health among the student body, when the more likely explanation is that the policy is a relic from the age when Hamilton was concerned with training its elite young men for future country club memberships. It would be wise if the school placed the same institutional focus on the mental health of its students.
The most obvious mixed message students receive about the true strength of their autonomy lies in the school’s ban on off-campus housing. Encouraging Seniors to be proactive in their job searches while forcing them to live in a dorm, where they cannot light a candle or hang a tapestry, is confusing; it brings to surface a contradiction in the school’s stated goal to help students become independent individuals. Any knowledge that Seniors can gain in a classroom does not replace the practical skills of learning to lease a house and to manage monthly rent. Forcing of-age Seniors to live in college dorms, despite the fact that many of them have lived independently, both domestically and abroad, is unnecessarily infantilizing.
It is difficult to argue that Hamilton is preparing its students for life in the ‘real world’ when academic, fitness, and housing choices are micromanaged by the administration. Perhaps the best route for students to gain the independence they deserve is to continue strengthening the trust between the administration and the student body.
Doing away with the fitness requirement wouldn’t hurt either.
