For the first time ever at Harvard, all academic departments are planning how to train their teaching fellows to teach.

Under a rule approved last spring by the Faculty Council, every department must come up with an individual agenda by December.

But the Faculty Council initiative, voted in after pressure from Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell and Undergraduate Council members, may still be too lax.

Even as departments move to implement it, undergraduates and graduate students say the Faculty Council plan fails to provide a centralized, enforceable minimum requirement.

"I think a universal guideline is something Harvard cannot shirk from," says Hassen A. Sayeed '96, who worked on the council's TF training proposal last year when he was chair of the student affairs committee.

"I do not think it an insensitive argument to propose that a common guideline be established to ensure that all students receive the best possible education," Sayeed says.

The Plans

Most of the departments have moved to craft training plans already, though they don't have to implement them until the fall of 1995. The plans must be on Buell's desk for approval in December, however.

The majority of departments will use the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning to train their TFs. The Bok Center offers orientation sessions for new teaching fellows, as well as ongoing monitoring, filming and support for working teachers.

The Near Eastern languages and civilizations department plans to send its TFs to the Bok Center, though the department is not yet sure what form the training will take.

"We are in the process of formulating procedures that will make heavy use of the Bok Center, but we still have a ways to go," said department chair John Huehnergard.

Other departments are planning more individualized teaching training.

In the religion department, for instance, TFs must take Bok Center classes supplemented by sensitivity education in the department.

"We require TFs in the department to participate in the Bok Center orientation in the fall," says chair Diana L. Eck. "We had our own session in the special problems in teaching diversity in the context of the study of religion."

Like religion, the fine arts department will use both Bok Center and specialized department training.