The Great Issues Course at Dartmouth
A LTHOUGH required courses for students in the first two years are a familiar part of ordinary college work, a required course for Seniors, shared by all the members of the class, is an innovation in the usual mid-century procedures of American higher education. The course that occupies this privilegedand exposed-position in the Dartmouth curriculum is the one in Great Issues, which was proposed by John S. Dickey when he became president of Dartmouth in I945. The course was first given, after a year of somewhat arduous and anxious preparation, in the academic year of I947-I948.1 After having lived through a probationary period, at the end of which it was carefully scrutinized by the faculty Committee