While students who pack Sanders Theatre for courses such as "Justice" and "The Bible and it Interpreters" are accustomed to large Core classes, even Sanders might seem crowded this year as students scramble to fulfill their requirements from a list of Cores at a seven-year low.

The number of courses offered this year is 19 fewer than last year, 86 total compared to the 105 offered in the 1995-96 school year. Not since the 1989-90 academic year, when the offerings in the Core Curriculum dropped to 83 courses, has the total been lower.

This statistic, which is not adjusted for two course cancellations, has not gone unnoticed.

James T.L. Grimmelmann '99-'98, an Undergraduate Council representative who serves on the Committee for the Core Program (CCP), which reviews and approves courses for the Core, says the unusually low number is a serious problem.

"It's an argument that something needs to be done," he says.

Some administrators and Faculty members agree.

"I am very concerned with the number of course offerings in the Core this term," Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles writes in a fax.

Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core Program, says the difference is not significant, attributing the number to year-to-year fluctuation.

"It's up and down, depending on things like Faculty leave. The only area that is regularly low, and exceptionally low this year is Moral Reasoning," Lewis says.

Only one Moral Reasoning class, "Reason and Evaluation," is offered this term.

CCP member Luis Fernandez-Cifuentes, professor of Romance languages and literatures, says the low figure is not necessarily a cause for alarm.

"It has been discussed in passing, but it is not such an essential problem," he says.

Former Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell says that during his tenure as Dean, the Committee worked on widening the variety of Core offerings.

"There was always very strong desire to increase the number of Cores, particularly in areas where there is not a large number of courses, such as Moral Reasoning," Buell says.

Lewis says the reason for the sharp drop was not that this year's numbers are particularly low, but that students are comparing them with 1995-96 totals, which were an all-time high.