In an effort to revamp its much-criticized undergraduate curriculum, the history department announced yesterday that it will significantly revise its tutorial program beginning with the class of '98.

The overhaul comes after several years of student criticism of the tutorial system and of undergraduate education in the department.

"We think that this will substantially improve undergraduate education in our concentration and we are devoting an extraordinary amount of our resources to this new program," Professor of History Mark A. Kishlansky said yesterday.

The new faculty-led tutorial program will emphasize reading, writing and research skills, according to Professor of History James Hankins, the department's head tutor.

The new sophomore tutorial will go into effect next year, and the new junior tutorial the year after that. Thus, the system will have no effect on current history concentrators, Hankins said.

Kishlansky said the department hopes that the changes will convince more first-years to choose the history con- centration.

"We just want to make the best program we canmake," Hankins said. "If students take it, fine.If they don't, we will have to rethink it."

The number of history concentrators droppedfrom 488 in 1986 to 386 in 1989, declining to 251in 1993.

Concentrators will receive detailed informationabout the new program later this year, Hankinssaid.

The program is part of a new move torestructure undergraduate education in the historydepartment. This fall, several faculty members inthe department proposed moving the History 10sequence into the Core Curriculum.

The Program

The first semester sophomore tutorial willserve as an introduction to broad types ofhistorical reading and writing, Hankins said in aninterview yesterday in which he described the newprogram.

It will replace a current system that Hankinsdescribed as a "grab bag of topics [that] don'thave a rational relationship with each other."

The first semester sophomore tutorial will betaught by Kishlansky and Laurel Ulrich, a recentlytenured professor, who will be leading students inreading different types of historical sources.

Students will work in large sections withsenior faculty, and then break into smallersections of five people, working intensely with atutor, according to Kishlansky.

"I'm really looking forward to doing it," hesaid. "I have already begun the course planningeven though it won't be taught until next fall."