The Faculty of Arts and Sciences will offer over 62 freshman seminars in the next academic year, nearly twice as many as the 33 taught this year.

Nearly two thirds of the seminars will be taught by members of the faculty, as compared to a third of them this year, with senior lecturers teaching the others.

The increase comes on the heels of a report by Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82 and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz this fall that urged an increase in the number of seminars offered to first-years.

This fall, about 700 first-years applied for spots in the Freshman Seminar program but the program could accommodate only 230 students. And according to Pedersen, the Freshman Seminar program has shrunk almost by half since the 1980s.

The report urged structural changes to the program as well—such as allowing seminars to count for concentration or core credit—and Pedersen discussed the possibility of such changes at a faculty meeting yesterday, but no structural changes have been made for the coming year.

However, Pedersen personally wrote to departments asking faculty to teach more seminars.

The memo described the benefits of increasing the number of seminars, and asked that departments discuss it at a departmental meeting, she said.

“We decided that we would see if through exhortation and goodwill we could grow the program,” she said.