The committee recommends that student writing skills be evaluated during freshman orientation period by assigning one or more papers to be written on particular topics. Students with exceptional writing skills would be excused from Expository Writing courses.

The report stipulates that the Faculty designate no more than eight courses in each area, except in western lit and art which would have 12 offerings.

The task force offers only sketchy examples of the type of courses that would fit into these requirements. The mathematical reasoning bracket, for example, would include subjects such as statistical inference, computer science, or problems in public policy analysis.

The physical and biological sciences offerings would familiarize students with important findings and the methods employed to reach them, according to the report. These offerings would deal more with pure science than most Nat Sci offerings given now.

Criticism

The report criticizes the current Nat Sci requirements because "it can be met in any number of ways which insure that the student will not learn or even observe from a safe distance, science."

Courses in western culture could be similar to Soc Sci 2, "Western Thought and Institutions," Wilson said. Courses such as Soc Sci 11, "East Asian Civilization," would fit into the non-western bracket.

Ec 10, "Principles of Economics," would fit under modern social analysis as well as courses dealing with analyses of social structure and the study of relationships between personal attributes and social processes.

Although the task force concedes that a foreign language requirement can be of value, the committee members wrote that they "do not believe that this value is sufficiently great" so that it should be considered on the same level as other core courses.

At the opening of the 38-page report, the committee members acknowledge that they discussed and rejected the possibility of eliminating the core curriculum or making it more flexible.

However, Robert V. Pound, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, dissented from the report, noting that he disagrees with the decision to recommend any particular set of special and narrowly defined required courses.

Pound wrote that he favors a more flexible approach to curriculum that would not delineate required courses in such a specific manner.

The decision to undertake broad changes in the Gen Ed program is a tricky one and one that will probably meet opposition from some portions of the Faculty.

Within the last five years committees at Yale and Princeton, which proposed that certain educational reforms be made, were confronted with unobliging faculties that managed to sidetrack most of the major recommendations.

Wilson said he is aware of the obstacles but hopes that some form of change from the status quo will be achieved