1. Include important areas of knowledge not adequately represented in the present Program;

2. Introduce a greater variety of varying levels of preparation;

3. provide course sequences so that the option to pursue certain interests in greater depth would be available.

The existing Program is based upon a requirement of six and one-half courses, several of which may be departmental courses. We proposed to work within this frame work but to specify more clearly the limits under which departmental courses can be employed for General Education purposes.

Our solution...eventually came in recognizing that for the structure of General Education, the traditional three-way division of learning could be usefully replaced by a simpler division into two parts. For our purposes the line of division lay within the social sciences where the joining of history and the behavioral sciences has always left a visible seam.

Of course, the behavioral sciences and history have influenced each other in many ways. But from the standpoint of General Education, history, with its concern with the interaction of ideas and events, and the context of cultural development, stands closer to the humanities than to the behavioral sciences.

On the other hand the behavioral sciences share much, though by no means all, of the concern and the methodology of the natural sciences. Both seek to establish abstract regularities in the behavior of the objects they study and when possible they test their new insights by the success of their predictions.

There are, of course, areas within the behavioral sciences in which the scientific approach has not been particularly relevant or useful, and this must be kept clearly in view. Yet on balance we believe that at this time the behavioral sciences are more closely related to the natural sciences than to history, particularly in the attitudes and methods which deserve emphasis in General Education.

As a consequence of these considerations we propose that for the purposes of General Education the areas of relevant learning be simply divided between the Humanities, which in our usage will include history and the full range of subjects traditionally grouped under the humanities, and the Sciences, which will embrace natural science, mathematics and the behavioral sciences. This division is not advanced as the basis of a theory of knowledge: it is simply a device for effecting a Program of nondepartmental education within the constrains of the problem as we understand it.

Apart from the requirements within the Humanities and Sciences divisions, two courses will be reserved for further work either in elective courses offered in General Education or in departmental courses outside the student's field of concentration.

The purposes of this division, which we shall call General Education Electives, are twofold. First, we wish to preserve a place in the Program for courses by distinguished members of the Faculty without the requirement that they fit into either of the other two main divisions. Second, we wish to keep for the Committee on General Education a domain in which they can experiment with a new course offerings, for example in non-Western cultures and creative arts, that may not fit into the other divisions.

In our view departmental courses have a proper role to play in General Education. A controlled competition between the departmental and General Education courses can, on the whole, be mutually beneficial; though, of course, the options must not be such as to disrupt the coherence of the Program.

A more important reason lies in the diversity of attainment and interest among our students. No Program of General Education courses as such can be sufficiently comprehensive for their varied needs. Hence the possibility should be reserved for them to create from the richness of departmental offerings an alternative to a part, at least, of the courses offered in the Program. In making this provision, we wish to permit the use of departmental courses that lie clearly outside the student's field of concentration and areas related to it.

Operating Rules

Rule 1. Instruction in General Education will be grouped into two principal divisions, Humanities and Sciences, and a division consisting of Electives. Students will be required to take TWO full courses or their equivalents in each of the three divisions. In addition, a half-course in English Composition and proficiency in a foreign language will be required.