The new plan also differs form the originalproposal in considering both spoken and writtenEnglish for courses in which written Englishskills are relevant. The original plan onlyfocused on spoken skills.

"In some areas, it might be spoken Englishthat's the issue," Skocpol said. "In others, itmight be written as well. In that sense it's amore comprehensive plan."

But council members were quick to note that theproblem of insufficient language or teachingskills is not prevalent among TFs.

"There's been a lot of publicity lately aboutthe TFs which gives the impression that we have alarge problem with incompetence among the graduatestudents, when in fact the contrary is true,"Feldman said.

Buell said the plan stems from an effort toimprove teaching overall.

"The resolution is absolutely not designed as apunitive stroke against either Harvard's teachingfellows...or against the FAS departments, "hesaid.

"Rather, the idea is to come up with a morecomprehensive and proactive system that ensuresthe best possible start-up and supervision of ournew TFs so as to benefit the overall quality ofinstruction," Buell added.

Buell said he expects only a small number ofTFs to need extensive training. "I'm confident onthe basis of studies we've done and fromcomparative institutional experience that we'reonly talking about a very few cases each year," hesaid.

But even those few cases would merit attention,Skocpol said. "I think that most of our TFs do anoutstanding job", she said. "But where there areproblems, we need to address them, and we have."

Skocpol also emphasized the speed with whichthe plan won council approval. "This was aproposal which went through in two Faculty Councilmeetings, which is lightning fast in terms ofcouncil meetings," she said. "I don't see whyanyone should disagree."

"With all the revisions it's had I think it'sgoing in them right direction," said AssistantProfessor of the Classics Cynthia Damon.

And Feldman said council support was strong. "Idon't think there was any contention at all," hesaid.

Buell expects departments to begin formulatingtheir training proposals soon, he said.

He added that departments will use models fromexisting procedures to develop the trainingprograms.

"What the faculty council is asking should notbe difficult to implement," Buell said