Former Cambridge Mayor Alice K. Wolf will be leading a study group as a fellow at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics (IOP) this spring while she deliberates about her future plans--political and otherwise.

Wolf, one of seven spring semester fellows at the IOP, will be conducting a study group called "Preparing for the Next Century: It Takes a Village to Raise a Child," every Tuesday from 4-5:30 p.m. starting February 15.

The group will focus on child development and education and the relationship between family and community, according to IOP publications. It will discuss how politicians and public policy makers can be more effective in dealing with family issues.

Wolf, who did not seek re-election to the City Council last fall, said she would have run for Congress if Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III (D-Cambridge) had decided to run for governor in this year's gubernatorial election.

"One of the things I'm here as a fellow to do is to figure out what I'm going to do next," she said.

Besides serving as mayor, vice mayor and city councillor, Wolf has hungry thesis writers.

"The beauty of this course is that you don'teven have to take the midterm if you're writingyour senior thesis," Glen M. Bianchi '94 said.

No specific Reading is required that directlyrelates to the material taught in class, butstudents are asked to read a variety ofselections, such as George Orwell's 1984 andAldous Huxley's Brave New World, whosegeneral ideas, according to Fleming, are the sameideas talked about in the course."

"Because the reading is pretty unrelated to thelectures, you don't have to prepare for them,"Michael K. Ng '95 said.

Despite the course's status as a cake-walk,some students claim that they actually learnedsome good material.

"You learn things that are great for a cocktailparty--a little bit about a lot of people," saidVarela.

Others even contend the course's lack ofintensity helps them grasp the material.

"It's good class, you can definitly learnsomething," said Ng. "If you attend lectures youcan get a lot out of them without feeling anystress. I don't know if every course taught atHarvard should be this way, but one is not a badthing.