Study abroad has never been a central part of the Harvard education—but that may soon change.

Faculty members and administrators have recently begun to focus on reevaluating and revamping Harvard’s study abroad program.

And encouragement from new University President Lawrence H. Summers has definitely helped to add fuel to the study abroad fire, administrators say.

“The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has embraced President Summers’ interest in this issue, and his voice has certainly been influential in carrying the process forward” says William L. Fash, chair of the Standing Committee on Study out of Residence.

Harvard currently lags far behind other research institutions in the number of students it sends abroad each year.

Roughly 160 Harvard undergraduates participate in study out-of-residence programs each year, according to the Office of Career Services (OCS).

In contrast, Dartmouth, for example, which enrolls approximately 3,500 fewer undergraduates than Harvard, sent 700 students abroad in the 1999-2000 academic year.

Some Faculty members see no reason why international study cannot be as accessible at Harvard.

As a first step the Faculty commissioned a report on the state of study abroad at Harvard at the end of last semester. James T. Grimmelmann ’99, a former member of the Undergraduate Council who devoted a great deal of his time at Harvard to studying and suggesting ways to improve the Core program, was selected to perform the study.

The Grimmelmann Report will be distributed to Faculty members next week so that it may be used to stimulate a discussion on study abroad at the next full Faculty Meeting, scheduled for Nov. 13.

Administrators say that they hope to pass study abroad legislation as early as next semester that will take effect at the beginning of the next academic year.

“I think there’s long been some ambivalence—both among Faculty and students—about the value of time spent elsewhere as opposed to time spent at Harvard,” Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz says. “But I think the balance has shifted and it’s time to reassess how we present ourselves to the world.”

Study Abroad in the Past

According to Wolcowitz, the first time that improving study abroad at Harvard was raised as an issue was during the 1949-1950 academic year, when students concentrating in certain areas such as Romance Languages in Literatures, Germanic Languages and Literature and Linguistics obtained the right to earn credit for work done abroad in their concentration.

Until the 1970s, the only additional liberalization of study abroad opportunities that occurred were additions in the number of concentrations that were allowed to count work done abroad for credit.