HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Boston U. honors college abandons Socratic method, Western canon in favor of social justice curriculum.

The freshman seminar included readings by Friedrich Nietzsche, Virginia Woolf and Sigmund Freud, and stood as a prime example of an attempt by the honors college to offer students an education grounded in a classical liberal arts tradition.

But “Modernity and its Discontents” is gone, and so is a popular professor who used to co-teach it, Anna Katsnelson.

In late May, she was abruptly dismissed from her post as assistant director of academic affairs for the honors college at the private university, and for many students enrolled in the program, it was the last straw.

A large contingent of students and recent grads of Kilachand Honors College say the program has taken a wrong turn in recent years. They argue it has largely abandoned its original mission to offer a challenging curriculum anchored in a Western canon and has lost its close-knit community feel centered on a passion for academic rigor and diversity of thought.

In other words, the Socratic method of learning has been scrapped and the honors college has become just another typical liberal arts program with an echo chamber of leftism, its critics say.

Some 120 students and alumni of the honors college — roughly one-third of its enrollment — recently demanded answers, saying they are “devastated” by the termination of Katsnelson, who embodied “the community and spirit of the college” with her open-door policy, personal investment in students’ lives, and passion for intellectual debate.

Cost of attending Boston University: $70,302 per year.