But the rub to all this, as I glimpsed briefly last winter, is that many students run the risk of never achieving the level of sustained, focused engagement in their studies necessary to spark serious academic interest. It falls to the College to push back a bit, to find a policy tack that will allow the classroom to take back some of the territory currently overrun by student organizations. I’m not advocating stamping out the extracurricular pursuits that give the campus its flavor—just tweaking the equilibrium somewhat. Otherwise, Harvard will have to continue to accept the fact that some of the nation’s finest students are barely tapping deep reservoirs of academic potential, and that the beginnings of scholarly curiosity are routinely sliding away like runoff on a badly designed road.
