In the spring of 1978, it took then-Dean of the Faculty Henry A. Rosovsky three months’ worth of heated meetings to get the Faculty to adopt the Core curriculum.

This time around, professors are predicting that passing even minor changes will require similar political savvy.

“Be bold,” MacFarquhar advises Kirby. “In reforming the undergraduate curriculum there are long-time entrenched issues that need to be argued strenuously when proposals come up.”

But this year’s unilateral restructuring decisions and the preregistration debacle call into question Kirby’s ability to unite the Faculty behind a major initiative.

Some also complain that while Kirby’s commitment to the curricular review is strong, they had hoped he would be more forceful in his vision of what he as dean would like to achieve.

“It isn’t clear that [Kirby] has a vision of what should be done,” Mendelsohn says. “I would have loved to see him pose some deeper questions as to where the inquiry should go.”

The Globe-trotter

Though Kirby has not offered any overarching vision for the curricular review, he does have one clear priority for the future of Harvard College—infusing a more international flavor to the undergraduate experience.

“He’s less concerned with the tradition of Western Civilization to be defended or upheld [than] the capacity to deal with the world’s vast populations,” says Salstonstall Professor of History Charles S. Maier ’60.

Former director of the Asia Center and co-author of the report on study abroad that the Faculty approved last year, Kirby has been a long-time advocate for the internationalization of the curriculum.

In continuing this year with his support for interdisciplinary area studies, Kirby directed half a million dollars of the dean’s discretionary funds to new programs in African and South Asian studies.

While both these initiatives were in the pipeline before he assumed office, many say that Kirby acted decisively to realize them.

“It would have happened anyway, but Dean Kirby speeded up the process when he came in by making several important decisions,” says Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs Sugata Bose, who will lead the new South Asian Initiative.

Bose said that the dean’s help has allowed them to install a new interfaculty program on India and Pakistan and work to expand library resources on South Asian Studies.

Similarly, by endorsing the renaming of the Afro-American studies department to include a focus on African studies, Kirby finally realized a recommendation made in 1991 to increase dedication to the field.