Chopra said that an open online forum for student feedback, continual updates on the council Web site and House-based discussion sessions may be pursued in order to keep the undergraduate community involved.

Applicants will be selected based on academic background, extracurricular involvement and the amount of time they can commit to the process, Gross said.

Graduating seniors and students planning on taking leaves of absence in the upcoming year will not be considered for the eight positions.

Graduate students across the University were also invited yesterday to apply for one of four spots on the committees.

“In my opinion, the graduate students who are picked must be Teaching Fellows or tutorial leaders,” Chopra said. “We also need participation from recent graduates, because they have an invaluable perspective on a Harvard education.”

The committees, which are expected to be finalized by early April, will meet several times this spring, although formal deliberations will not take place until next fall.

The last curricular review, which was completed in 1974, took five years to complete.

This time, Kirby hopes to move things along at a quicker pace: he aims to have a set of conclusions to present to the Faculty by the end of the 2003-2004 academic year.

If the process proceeds at such a rigorous clip, the changes to the curriculum could start to go into effect during the 2005-2006 academic year, Kirby said.

Gross, however, has doubts about this projection.

“I doubt that any curricular changes will affect anybody who is at school right now,” Gross said.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. O’Brien can be reached at robrien@fas.harvard.edu.