Kane said it would be all too easy to spend a considerable amount of money and time developing a program that might not be as useful as expected.
“When you are considering new Web-based student services, the initial question always needs to be, ‘What problems are you trying to solve?’” he said.
Other members questioned how such a system might affect advising and add and drop procedures.
Adams said the SAC would take the suggestions into account and discuss the matter further among themselves before bringing the issue back to the CUE.
She said after the meeting that one possibility might be to have an online system just for adding and dropping, while keeping Harvard’s current system of course registration.
Also on the agenda was a proposal to change the name of the Committee on Degrees in Women’s Studies, presented by Professor of History and Women’s Studies Afsaneh Najmabadi.
She said the committee wished to rechristen itself the “Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality,” and implement slight changes to the concentration itself, including adding a new junior-level course on theories of sexuality.
“Over the last 20 years women’s studies as an interdisciplinary field has field has become closely intertwined with the fields of gender studies and sexuality studies,” the proposal read. “In practice—and regardless of their particular names—all women’s studies programs, including ours, now work at the intersection of those fields.”
But Associate Professor of Government James R. Muirhead and Professor of Psychology Marc D. Hauser expressed concern over whether the new title might be misleading.
The CUE agreed to forward the matter to the Faculty Council for further discussion.
Gross kicked off the meeting with a few comments about the ongoing curricular review. He mentioned several topics the four working groups of the review will address—revising the academic calendar, the theme of international experience—and said a main concern of his is securing more student input.
“I am concerned, if we have a forum and only a few people show up, we’re not getting the issues in front of people,” Gross said, referring to the Oct. 8 panel organized by the student members of the curricular review, which conflicted with a Red Sox playoff game. “We have to find a way to get more students involved.”
CUE member Catherine A. Matta ’05 said the students of the CUE have several important goals—matters they would like to see addressed by the committee over the coming year.
“Some of the issues we know we’re going to try to put forth to the CUE are the issue of reducing class size, also offering more classes within the Core and improving advising for upperclassmen,” she said.
—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.