Gomes added that the proponents of calendar reform—who include Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby—have not articulated a sufficient need for revisions even considering the ongoing curricular review.

“Many a curricular ship has foundered on the shoals of calendar reform,” Gomes said. “The chief argument cannot be that change is good, but that seems to be what’s driving this.”

Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 said he thought moves to facilitate cross-registration could actually be counter-productive.

“I would strongly caution the administration against making any changes that further ‘pre-professionalize’ the Harvard academic experience,” Mahan wrote in an e-mail last week. “We get enough pre-professionalism in our extracurriculars and I worry that with this change students would start competing on the basis of how many classes they were taking at the Medical School, for example.”

But Verba said that classes taught by professors at the graduate schools can have a place in a liberal arts education.

“I wouldn’t necessarily look at people taking something at the Law School or at the School of Education or the Kennedy School as professional education—[those courses] deal with intellectual subjects of great interest,” he said.

Associate Dean of the College Jeffrey Wolcowitz, who is one of the leaders of the curricular review, said last week that the synchronization would make it easier for professors at schools like the Law School or the Medical School to teach College classes.

Friedman also charged in his memo that the rationale for shifting the timing of the academic year and creating a monthlong intersession was premature.

“The faculty has yet to discuss the merits of the proposal for a January term, and so we’re not in a position to say whether that more fundamental change would be good or bad,” Friedman wrote. “It makes no sense to change the FAS calendar to pave the way for a curriculum change we haven’t decided to make.”

But Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 said last week that the potential J-term “is an opportunity for us to offer types of instruction that we don’t offer during the semester.”

“Maybe students decide this is bogus or I don’t want to do this or this is extra work,” he said. “But you know you can do something in a three-and-a-half week course when you’re doing nothing else that you can’t do during the term.”

Gomes said that, should such a month-long block of space be established, FAS would have little choice but to institute an academic term during that time.

“Our Puritan consciences wouldn’t let us take the time off,” he said.

Mendelsohn said that the Faculty Council had also discussed the mixed experiences that other colleges and universities have had with January terms.

“The question was raised about what we knew about the experiences at other schools and colleges, and the general feeling was that it was mixed,” Mendelsohn said. “My understanding from anecdotes is that my colleagues and students at MIT don’t really think it’s worth much.”