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The Dartmouth
July 16, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Education dept. shifts towards neuroscience

Like a boxer on the ropes bouncing back to win, the College's education department has escaped potential termination and modernized itself by increasing its focus on scientific fields such as neuroscience. Although department faculty members and many students told The Dartmouth they support the changes, some undergraduates said they have misgivings about the direction the department is taking.

Education department courses now emphasize neuroscience, brain development and cognition. All four recently hired education professors are trained in cognitive neuroscience, according to Assistant Professor of Education Danny Ansari. Education Department Chair Laura-Ann Petitto, however, stressed that these personnel moves do not reflect a core alteration in the focus of the department.

"The field of education is a rich, evolving discipline," Petitto said. "The discipline has changed in the same way that psychology has changed and courses no longer focus exclusively on Freud. We're just keeping in step, so this is not an idiosyncratic predilection; it's keeping in sync with the national and international priorities."

Ansari also emphasized that the changes were a necessary evolution for the department, noting that other institutions such as Harvard University and Cambridge University are taking similar steps.

"This is an internationally and nationally accepted direction," Ansari said. "There is a real need to base education on scientific principles."

The education department began its changes four years ago, renumbering courses and changing their content, as well as hiring new faculty and remodeling the department's minors. The department also received a new building, Raven House, in fall 2003.

The education department at Dartmouth had been the subject of substantial controversy in the past, twice lambasted in internal reviews in 1993 and 1996. Although it has always enjoyed considerable student support, faculty and administrators have criticized the department because of its vocational bent, which some consider inappropriate at a liberal-arts college.

Many students minoring in education said they support the department's changes.

"I think it's really great because it's really important to find a link between theory and practice and research," said Hannah Burzynski '07, an education minor in the elementary certification program. "It's helping people take education more seriously."

Betsy Hart '05, who is receiving teacher certification, said she was initially skeptical of the department's direction, but eventually came to approve of the changes.

"As someone who wants to be a teacher, at first I didn't see how this science would be useful in the classroom, but now I'm convinced of the importance of the marriage between the classroom and neuroscience," Hart said.

However, some students said they are unsure about the benefit of changes to the department. Alana Bond '07, an education minor in the teacher education program, expressed skepticism about the increased focus on science.

"I don't think anything we're learning is going to help in an actual classroom," Bond said. "I don't think that some day I'm going to be standing over a kid and all of a sudden I'm going to say 'Oh, you just reminded me of something that I learned about cognitive development!'"

Bond also complained that the nature of the department's changes has not been well-publicized, resulting in some surprised students.

"There are a lot of people going into education and it's not at all what they expected," Bond said.

Prior to the restructuring, the education department was shrinking and facing dissolution. The College created an outside review board composed of nationally renowned educators, including experts from Brown University and Stanford University. The board recommended that the College increase its support for the department and modernize it. Petitto stressed that the College provided all resources necessary to carry out the recommended changes.

Though the department has met the goals established by the review board, it is planning further changes. Its two main goals are the creation of an education major and an increase in the number of faculty, Petitto said. The department submitted a request to the College for the creation of a new major in "education and the learning sciences," in fall 2004.

"We've got the basics. Now, as we look out to the horizon, the most immediate and exciting thing is to launch a major, and after that we'd like to expand our faculty to better serve the students," Petitto said.