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Avon Barksdale, Detective Jimmy McNulty and everyone's favorite dope fiend, Bubbles will soon be moving from the poverty-stricken streets of inner-city Baltimore to the affluent, ivy-covered walls of Harvard University.  No, HBO hasn't announced plans for a spin-off of The Wire set in Cambridge, Massachusetts (though how awesome would it be to see students of our country's top 1% awkwardly fumble through interactions with Omar Little and his sawed-off or be propositioned for tall tees at the Bubbles push cart market?).  Instead, the arguably best television show in history will soon be taught as a class at Harvard University according to the school's student newspaper, The Crimson.

The announcement was made during a recent panel discussion at the school discussing the show's impact.  The panel featured several of the show's stars, including Sonja Sohn (Det. Kima Greggs), Andre Royo (Bubbles) and Michael Kenneth Williams (Omar "Indeed" Little).  

The class will be taught by sociology professor William J. Wilson, an outspoken fan of the show and "one of the best-known African American history professors in the country" according to The New York Post.  Wilson echoed countless entertainment critics and journalists before him when he said, "'I do not hesitate to say that it has done more to enhance our understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality, more than any other media event or scholarly publication, including studies by social scientitsts [sic].'"

Harvard is not the first institution of higher education to teach a course on The Wire.  Courses already exist at Duke University and Middlebury College and one will be introduced next semester at Notre Dame. 

Created by former Baltimore journalist David Simon and often produced, written and directed by former beat writers and police officers, The Wire has been hailed as the most revealing and objective look at inner-city life ever presented to mainstream audiences.  As edifying as this experience will be for any privileged student who enrolls, The Wire often re-iterated the sad but true idea fact that many racial, political and economic barriers exist because of firmly entrenched systems that need to be changed on every level from the government on down to individual households.  Perhaps the irony that a vast majority of the children featured in the show's fourth season won't ever make it to college has not escaped Wilson and he realizes - and will himself reiterate to students - that studying and acting are two different things.

For one of the most important interviews you'll ever see, watch David Simon on Bill Moyers Journal.