Music Professor Kay K. Shelemay, who serves as chair of CES, said that the elevation to standing committee status—with an accompanying increase in visibility—represents an important step forward.

“We would like to drop the cloak of anonymity and take our place among the other standing committees of the University,” Shelemay said.

Being a standing committee means that the names and contact information of the group’s members will be published in course catalogs, giving students greater access to the resources they provide. According to Shelemay, ad hoc committees generally deal with specific issues and exist for only finite periods of time.

Shelemay said that the mission of the CES is to enhance courses in ethnic studies in the United States, specifically Latino-American, Asian-American and Native American subject matter.

The council also gave its approval to a change in academic requirements, advocated by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68, that would bring standards for first-years in line with those for upperclass students.

As it stands now, all students but those in their first term at the College who receive a failing grade as well as an unsatisfactory grade, or who receive fewer than two satisfactory grades, can be required to take a year’s leave of absence from the College. The standards for students in their first term at school, however, are more lenient—needing only one satisfactory grade to retain their place in the College.

“The Board felt that it would in general be better for someone who could not meet the ordinary minimum requirements to take a year away from Harvard to get focused and re-energized before trying Harvard coursework again,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail.

According to the proposal Lewis submitted to the Faculty Council, only eight students over the past two academic years have fallen in the range that is acceptable for those in their first term, but unacceptable for others. Of those, six either failed to meet requirements in their spring term or did not finish the school year.

“Failure at this level is almost invariably associated with lack of motivation, conflicts about goals, distracting personal problems, etc., which are best sorted out away from Harvard,” Lewis said. “Students who take a year away from Harvard for academic reasons almost always return to do much better.”

If the full Faculty approves the change, it will be reversing its 1997 decision to keep requirements for first-years more lenient than those for upperclass students.

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