In an appendix to the report, the committee lists possible course offerings in the QRR, including courses in demographics, behavior in high-risk situations and mathematical modeling.

"Two of us are contemplating courses in the new requirement, and we're very enthusiastic if that's the way it all works out," says Statistics Department Chair Carl N. Morris, whose proposed course "Probability: the language of uncertainty," is included in the appendix.

"I'd be very pleased to teach a course like this. I think it would be a good experience for the students and for me," Morris adds.

The current QRR draws mixed response from students.

"The test is heinous enough already," Sini says. "No one should be required to take a whole course in it. That would be sadism."

But Donald J. Rissmiller '98 says that students need the perspective offered by those classes.

"I think that Quantitative Reasoning is a skill people need but you have to wonder if the people who need it most are already taking a class like Stats 100," he says.

Deepak Sharma '97, who catagorizes the current Science Core courses as "pretty fluffy," says giving more weight to the QRR is a good idea.

"There are a lot of people here who just study for the QRR the night before, pass it and never look at a math textbook again."

Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core program, estimates that a QRR area would require one to one-and-a-half years of recruiting professors and reviewing course proposals before it could begin offering classes.

Less Is More?

While admitting that "such a move will help but will not fully solve" problems with the dwindling number of Core courses offered, the CRC recommends reducing the current number of required courses by one.

"The question to ask is whether [reducing the requirements] is a step in the wrong direction," Knowles says. "The committee was responsive to the concerns that the Core was too constraining. It was a pragmatic solution rather than an idealistic one."

Under the proposal, students would be required to fill six areas designated by concentration, and would choose their seventh Core course from two remaining catagories. The current system of exemptions from the remaining areas would be preserved.

For instance, a Biology concentrator would be required to take a class from the Foreign Cultures, History, Literature, Art/Music, Moral Reasoning and Social Analysis selections. The seventh Core course could be taken in either History or Literature. Biology concentrators would be exempt from the Physical Science, Life Science and Quantitative Reasoning requirements.