“We’ve certainly been talking to President Summers along the way in the curricular review, but these [ideas] came from conversations among the steering committee,” said Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz. “We’re all part of the same community.”
The Steering Committee and the four faculty working groups—on overall academic experience, pedagogy, general education and concentrations—have been meeting regularly over the course of the semester.
The report contains a summary of their work so far.
The group on overall academic experience reported that it will form three task forces: one to study advising and the freshman year, another on study abroad and a third on the relationship between curricular and extracurricular activities.
The general education committee said it will break down into three task forces that will jointly consider whether undergraduates are best suited by certain required courses, a Core program similar to the current one or a broader distribution system in which students could fulfill requirements with any course in a certain field.
The group’s framework betrayed little evidence of where the Faculty stands on what is likely to be a key question: whether the curriculum should seek to teach ways of thinking, the philosophy behind the current Core, or a particular body of knowledge.
The concentrations group will create three teams to look into examining the role of tutorials and other central concentration experiences, expanding interdisciplinary work and reconsidering the timing of concentration choice.
The pedagogy working group said it will investigate student-faculty interaction, student research opportunities, technology and instruction, teaching and how it is evaluated and writing instruction as well as the academic calendar.
As the first semester of the review winds down with more questions than answers, some wonder whether the ambitious one-year timeframe set for arriving at curricular recommendations is still realistic.
Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilization Peter K. Bol, who co-chairs the general education committee, said although he hopes to complete the review soon, a lot of work remains before the committees arrive at a new curriculum.
“The sooner the better,” he said. “If I think a consensus emerges that is shared widely among the Faculty, then I think we wouldn’t hesitate to go forward. I don’t think we’ve gotten to that point.”
Wolcowitz acknowledged that it remains unclear whether completing the review by June is tenable.
“We will continue working towards having a fuller report for the Faculty later in the year,” he said. “Exactly what will be in the report is hard to say.”
Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 said he still hopes to complete most of the review within the academic year.
“The hope is that we will have some guiding principles clearly defined by the end of this academic year, and that we will spend next year turning those principles into curricular policy,” Gross said.
However, he warned that despite hopes a new curriculum could be in place by Fall 2005, implementation of the new system could take time, noting that setting up the Core took four years after its ratification by the Faculty.
Discussion of the review and the report are currently slated as the main topic of discussion at next Tuesday’s Faculty meeting.
—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.