Major League Expansion?

Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '51 agreed that no predictions about potential yields could be determined at this time.

"Not before next year," he says. "Exactly what will happen and when will depend on what happens over the course of this year. You can't tell the first week of the term."

But Pope Professor of Latin Language and Literature Richard J. Tarrant, who teaches Literature and Arts C-61: "The Rome of Augustus," was hopeful about Core growth, predicting "students will see a few more new offerings next year."

Tarrant said the number of Core courses is not the Faculty's only concern. Although new guidelines will allow more departmental courses to count for Core credit, courses still must undergo a rigorous approval process to ensure that the Core philosophy is maintained.

"They wanted it to be as rigorous as the process has been before," he says. "We will look for departmental courses which could either be redesignated as Core courses, or remain departmental courses but count for the Core."

Tarrant says one additional advantage of the reform will be increased cooperation between the Core program and the departments.

In the past, departments were not very involved with the Core program. A closer working relationship, he says, could generate more Core possibilities.

"The contact was usually between the committee and the individual Faculty member and the department doesn't have much to do with it," Tarrant says.

"A closer relationship with the Core is to everyone's advantage," he says. "I think we're going to look at the curriculum in a more comprehensive way and bring [the departments and the Core program] into the same perspective."

The increased course choice will be the only aspect to affect current students.

The QRR

The new QRR subdivision, which will replaced the current statistics test all undergraduates are required to take, will not be implemented until the 1999-2000 school year.

This year, approximately 70 percent of the first-year class placed out of the QRR requirement in the first test, which is standard. There are subsequent exams which students can also use to place out of the class requirement.

In keeping with the Core reform proposals passed by the Faculty in May, as soon as enough course offerings exist to create a Quantitative Reasoning Requirement area, it will become a class requirement and the test-out option will be eliminated.

"There's a lot of Faculty interest in the QRR area," Lewis says. "That's one area where I have heard some discussion [of new courses]."