Fifty years ago, only the introductory courses had a paragraph description designed to entice undecided first-year students to a department. Departments would also provide a short paragraph of advice on which courses to take.

The advice from departments exited the Courses of Instruction and moved to a new publication, the Fields of Concentration, in the early 50s, about the time most course heads first submitted a descriptive paragraph for publication.

One significant difference between the 1946-47 Official Register and the current editions is the absence of bracketed courses--classes planned for the following year. These were not to reappear until the Faculty voted to terminate the campus state-of-emergency provisions in place during the war effort.

Though some departments, such as Chemistry and Mathematics, have very few to no bracketed courses, others, such as History and Romance Languages and Literature, have a considerable number of bracketed courses.

However, the page growth in the Courses of Instruction cannot be attributed to bracketed courses as much as growth in the Faculty, mostly due to new departments.

Senior Lecturer in Physics Margaret E. Law, who served as registrar from 1978 to 1989, says she, like the other registrars, have little control over what the catalog contains.

"We basically took what came in and put it into the catalog," Law says. "We pushed for the departments not to list things twice because it really pads the catalog.... We always tried to cut down and streamline but the catalog always got bigger and bigger every year."

During Law's tenure as registrar, almost every department had full year introductory courses, a practice Law attempted to stop.

"I remember I tried very hard to switch departments from full courses to half courses," she says. "Students did benefit [from the change], but we primarily did it for administrative reasons," she says.

One major culprit in packing the catalog seems to be the Division of Medical Sciences, a listing of classes and Faculty for graduate students in the sciences. The committee, an associate group of the Medical School, offers no classes for undergraduates and takes up 51 pages in the 1996-97 Faculty of Arts and Sciences catalog. Ten full pages of that is solely devoted to listing their Faculty.

Departments Choose Courses

Law points out that the departments and department chairs have the most impact on the number and type of classes offered.

Dale W. Jorgenson, Abbe professor of economics and chair of the economics department, agrees, though he says he tries to allow other members of the department to provide vital input.

"I superintend," Jorgenson says. "We decentralize things quite a bit here," he said of the economics department, traditionally one of the largest concentrations.

"We have different subheadings in the catalog and these groups get together and decide what they want to offer," Jorgenson explains. "I only get involved when there is a gap in teaching a required class or a similar problem."