"I actually kind of enjoy the reputation `Heroes' has as a gut class," says Sawlivich. "It attracts students, and they end up being really interested by the course material."

Word about possibly stiffened grading and tougher course assignments travels quickly though, and several first-year students noted that their advisors had warned them about beefed-up requirements.

"But everyone in my dorm still thinks it's a gut," said Sergio Camancho '94.

`Jesus and the Easy Life'

Thomas Professor of Divinity Harvey G. Cox says he too has overhauled the structure of his popular course Moral Reasoning 30: "Jesus and the Moral Life," working on the theory that increasing the number of assignments will help students learn better.

And two years ago, Cox abolished the five-student non-directed sections that once gave "Jesus and the Easy Life" its reputation as the ultimate Harvard gut.

"It's very hard to get an `A' in that class," Cox says. "If the class ever had that [gut] reputation, it certainly won't after [last spring]."

Cox dismisses the Confi Guide's write-up of "Jesus" as reflecting the opinions of just one or two students, but he says he does consult the CUE guide evaluations in planning his course each year.

The class, which currently requires two papers, a midterm and a final, boasts a newly revamped source book as a result of feedback from the CUE guide, Cox said.

"Jesus" scored a 2.9 in both workload and difficulty in this year's CUE guide, compared to the only slightly higher 3.1 and 3.0 respective averages for fall Core classes.

But old reputations die hard, and many undergraduates still consider Cox's class the most "relaxing" way to fulfill the moral reasoning course requirement.

"I read in one of those Lisa Birnbach books that `Jesus' was an easy class at Harvard," says Joanna Weiss '94.

`Sex'

Another reputed sure-fire gut is the over-crowded spring course, Science B-29: "Human Behavioral Biology," affectionately called "Sex." But here again, the professors claim their course has gotten a bad rap.

"The word `gut' is definitely a misnomer," says co-professor Terrence W. Deacon, an associate professor of Anthropology. "If you read the Confi and CUE guides, people always complain that the course wasn't like it was advertised."