Engineering has made it to the Core for the first time, thanks to McKay Professor of Applied Physics Frans A. Spaepen, who's teaching Science A-33: "The Architecture of Condensed Matter." His class will emphasize the scientific aspect of materials and their specific industrial applications.

Winning the Lotto

The odds are not good, but anyone surviving this semester's several lotteries may land a veritable jackpot.

History 1653: "Baseball and American Society, 1840-1996," taught by Gienapp, is one of about 20 new classes in the History Department.

When it was offered as a freshman seminar two years ago, hundreds applied. The losers will now have another chance.

"I've always been interested in sports in American culture, and baseball has the longest history of any sport in the United States," Gienapp said of the course.

Heaney, who's returning from a one-year leave, will again offer English Rbr: "The Practice of Poetry I" and English Sbr: "The Practice of Poetry II." But the Bolyston professor of rhetoric and oratory's class should draw more students, now that he's reached international acclaim.

Cross-Registration and Spring Options

There's nothing keeping students from cross-registering in K-School courses, including "Press, Politics and Public Policy."

The course, co-taught by Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy Marvin Kalb and newly-appointed Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press Thomas Patterson, examines the polemic power of the media in shaping public policy.

Retiring Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) will teach "Creating Legislation: Congress and the Press." It'll draw on the three-term senator's political career, including his oft-controversial encounters with the media. It meets this semester.

And there's William Julius Wilson, the former chair of the University of Chicago's sociology department, who is Harvard's latest addition to its star-studded Afro-American Studies Department.

The urban studies expert's classes, Afro-American Studies 196: "Sociological Perspectives on Racial Inequality in America," and Afro-American Studies 197: "Race, Class and Poverty in Urban America," are offered jointly with the Kennedy School this spring.

Enrollment, of course, is limited.