For renowned liberal arts colleges, reform is something of an imperative, says Dean of the College at the University of Chicago John W. Boyer.

“I think that small private colleges are always thinking about the curriculum...the faculty of the top private research universities also should be thinking about what they’re doing,” Boyer says.

In a world where schools compete for students and faculty members, curricular reform can attract people to a university, though it is unlikely to be the sole attraction for an already elite school, according to Bravman.

“The education market as a whole has become more competitive, and parents and students view it as a marketplace now, more than they used to,” Bravman says.

After the Yale curricular review report was released in 2003, Yale Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw said that he thought curricular changes at Yale could make some prospective students more interested in the school.

“The curricular changes, once understood, will be looked at as being very progressive,” Shaw told the Yale Daily News. “I think that it will be very attractive to future applicants.”

Dobin says that curricular reform may also attract a subset of faculty members, including younger professors.

But Keller says she believes that the factors that lead schools to reform are no more prevalent today than they were at the time of Harvard’s last major curricular review.

“Certainly schools in the ’60s and ’70s felt the same pressures as they do today. I don’t think there is more reform in the air today than there was in the 1970s,” she writes.

CULTURE COUNTS

Though all schools may feel a pressure to reform, recent changes put in place at each school depend on individual institutions’ cultures and histories rather than on a more universal precedent.

“I think it’s natural that like any type of institutions, universities should carefully review what their peer institutions are doing, and then move on to their own considerations. No one has perfect wisdom or insight into these issues,” Bravman says.

He adds that the culture of a university often determines the resources it is willing to delegate to a curricular review.

“Culture and mores and norms of any one institution are going to set bounds around what it can likely accomplish in a reasonable time frame and with reasonable costs,” Bravman continues.

Dobin agrees that each institution must consider potential curricular reforms through the lens of its own traditions.