Chopra says the new “shopping period” that Gross and Kirby promise would be no shopping period at all.

“It’s like what we have after shopping period now, the same thing we have until the fifth Monday, and they’re calling that shopping period,” Chopra says. “The fact that they’re saying they’re not considering that [difference] shows that it’s not about predicting numbers, it’s about not wanting students to drift in and out of classes that first week.”

But University President Lawrence H. Summers said at a study break in Kirkland House last night that he didn’t think “the burden of getting a couple of signatures on a form is preclusive.”

“I would hope that if as I expect the proposal is adopted that students will make extensive use as they see fit of adds and drops,” Summers said.

Students have also expressed concern that the requirement to register early will force them to commit to classes without adequate information. Though professors will be encouraged to post their syllabi online prior to the preregistration deadline, the administration cannot required them to do this, Wolcowitz says.

Above all, Chopra says he worries that the Faculty is rushing into an irreversible decision.

“Once it happens,” Chopra says, “it will never go back. There’s some disorder when there’s shopping period, but getting rid of that disorder for a few lectures is not worth it.”

Faculty Reaction

Most professors are ambivalent about the preregistration proposal, explaining that for them, the new system would require the same amount of work—just a little bit earlier.

“I don’t see that it would make a great deal of difference as far as the Faculty are involved,” says Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics John Womack Jr. “As it is, it has to be done pretty early anyway.”

“I think if people are like me, it’ll be at the last minute, and they’ll learn how to cope,” says Phillips Professor of Early American History Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who notes that preregistration may make it difficult to design the elaborate course websites she typically prefers to offer her students.

Chopra says many professors have told him that they “privately oppose” the proposal.

Today’s meeting should reveal where the divisions in the Faculty on the issue of preregistration lie.

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