"We want to use [the core] like Ec 10 uses it to bring in students," says Hankins. "We know a lot of people take cores freshman year looking for a concentration."
Hankins puts the likelihood of his survey history course joining the core next year at 75 percent. The possibility has been discussed for at least three years.
"We've been playing ring-around-the-rosy for about three years," Hankins says.
But like the former Fine Arts 13, History 10 will have to be modified to be a core. The proposal may also encounter resistance from the faculty's core committee, which is known to be wary of adding another survey.
"We haven't seen a proposal that addressed all our concerns," says Professor of History William E. Gienapp, who is a member of the Historical Studies B subcommittee of the core committee. "Regular Western Civ would not meet [the core guidelines]."
Fine Arts 13, though still an introductory class, now includes non-Western forms of art like Indian and Japanese classics. It is now "more thematic than chronological," Professor of Fine Arts Irene J. Winter said earlier this fall.
Advocates for the new class say they are willing to try to change it to fit core committee guidelines.
"The history department is very easy to please," says Goelet Professor of French history Patrice L. Higonnet '58, who teaches History 10b. "We'd like to extend the audience. If the core wants us to change [the course], we will."
The latest plan is to rewrite History 10a to fulfill the Historical Studies B core requirements, while History 10b will fulfill Historical Studies A. The courses would be structured around three or four major ideas each semester, such as the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity.
Hankins, the current professor of History 10a, experimented with the thematic modules concept this year.
"I tried it out on my poor guinea pig class," he says. "I like it better than what I had been doing. I had everything but the kitchen sink in the course [last year]."
But even if it is modified like Literature and Arts B-10 was, History 10 will not meet the "non-survey" guideline of the core.
"You can't get away from the fact that History 10 is a survey course," says Krupp Professor of European Studies Charles S. Maier, who, with Hankins, co-authored the proposal.
The question, he says, is if the core committee is willing to go even farther than it did with Literature and Arts B-10 and change the traditional mission of the curriculum.
"We can stretch it, squeeze it, dice it, or put in a blender, but there's only so much we can do," Maier says. "The core committee will have to face whether to accept it.