This year, as Core curriculum reform took center stage in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, observers often noted that Core courses comprise one-quarter of every undergraduate's course load.

However, there is another set of requirements in the undergraduate curriculum that is even more sizable--the set of courses taken for concentration credit.

In the last 50 years, students have seen their choices of where to devote about half their academic time at the College expand.

While an odd concentration has bit the dust--Geology and Geography was absorbed decades ago--many more have sprung up to fill the gaps--Environmental Science and Public Policy (ESPP), Afro-American Studies, Computer Science and Women's Studies are all relatively new offerings.

At the same time, the individual concentrations have undergone transformations.

The concentrations have shifted or eliminated requirements, encouraged more study with other disciplines and introduced specialized tracks--steps which most Faculty members say give students more flexibility within their chosen fields than ever.

"[Students] are going to find their own way to concentrate on their own interests," says Professor of English and Comparative Literature James T. Engell '73 who is also director of undergraduate studies for the Department of English and American Literature and Language.

Specialization

Many, including Associate Professor of Government Michael G. Hagen, head tutor of the Department of Government, worry that "forcing students to declare [a concentration] at the end of their freshman year is a little bit on the early side," yet students seem to be specializing earlier in their academic careers.

Hagen suggests that a number of factors may be contributing to the trend, including disagreements about what works make up a canon of knowledge, encouragement to think about senior theses early on and increasing specialization in the research interests of Faculty.

As undergraduates increasingly focuse on very specific course tracks, there are many signs that specialization is increasing in academics as a whole.

Buell says that Faculty members began narrowing their scholarly focus years ago.

"In university culture, there has been for some decades, and there I think will continue to be, a tendency in the research life of faculty toward specialization," he says.

Within the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Head Tutor James E. Davis says the increased specialization is a natural development of the discipline.

"Fifty years ago, each field was its own area," Davis says. "The field has matured to the point where we see these interdependent relationships."