The EPC also suggested that the grade required for satisfying a foreign language requirement could be increased from a D- to a C-.

The EPC also suggested that more foreign-language courses could be integrated into the Core Curriculum or that certificates could be given out to graduates who have completed upper-level language courses.

Another possibility for language reform would be to allow students to meet the Foreign Cultures requirement in the Core by taking four terms of a language at Harvard.

Overall Changes

The EPC's report on overall academic requirements had its beginning at the May 20 meeting of the Faculty. Concerns about overall academic requirements were voiced by both Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies Jay Harris and Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences Michael Hasselmo.

The EPC suggested reducing the number of required Core courses from eight to seven, limiting the number of courses required by certain concentrations (the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences leads with 20) and integrating language and Expository Writing requirements into other required courses.

"Some [of the possibilities] have a lot of merit, and some are based on a misunderstanding of what would be for the betterment of undergraduates," said Noah R. Freeman '99, an undergraduate member of the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) who sat in on the Council meeting.

"It was all very initial, a sort of talk-about-what-we're-going-to-talk-about kind of thing," Freeman said. "The issues it explores are very interesting."

Freeman said he expects the reports to be incorporated into policy proposals by spring 1999 at the latest, and said he and the other student CUE members would do their best to have the issue put to a vote before the end of this school year.

Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol, a member of the faculty council, said that she believes some of the recommendations will become policy.

"This is all pretty fast," said Skocpol. "[Some of the proposals] will be implemented in due course. I just don't know when due course is.