“We need to strongly encourage study abroad, to make it almost a requirement,” he said. “We must encourage students to be polyglot and amphibious...we should aim students toward non-Western cultures and toward languages with different alphabets and structures.”

Mallinkrodt Professor of Physics and Leverett Master Howard Georgi suggested that instead of impressing science, or at least the mathematical sciences, upon humanities and social science majors, the common denominator should be more basic.

“Some students have such a phobia of the mathematical sciences that it’s hard to get by,” he said. “If it’s a question of what to do with our resources, I’d rather students be able to parse a sentence, which is quantitative enough for many students.”

Summers spoke to the increasing trend of preprofessional studies.

“I wonder if what has been called the ‘vocationalization’ of our schools is not a positive trend,” he said. “There is now a greater capacity to impart knowledge than there had ever been before.”

And though nothing like a consensus regarding the Core curriculum emerged from the discussions, panelists suggested changing it in a multitude of ways.

“The present Core structure has been very valuable, but for some of our best students, it’s an annoyance” said Georgi. “A better system would be to allow such students to replace the entire Core requirement with a serious minor far from their main area of study.”

Daniel Schrag, professor of earth and planetary sciences, suggested that what is important to teach in the Core is what is socially relevant.

“Students respond to what is interesting to them and is partly determined by what is culturally important,” he said, adding that the reviewers needed to find a way to “engage students with what is interesting while not losing the foundations” of a general education system.

Curricular review committee co-chair and Jones Professor of American Studies Lizabeth Cohen said she thought the series of discussions extremely valuable.

“We need to have more of these discussions,” she said. “I felt very impressed by the intelligence and interest of my colleagues. It’s clear there are differences of opinion. It was great to bring in 15 faculty members who haven’t been part of the process.”

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.