“There’s no question that history and culture set the framework in terms of what is or is not possible,” Dobin says.

Princeton, Chicago and Stanford, which have all undergone small-scale curricular reviews in recent years, say they prefer more frequent, focused reforms to sweeping changes.

According to Dobin, eight years ago, Princeton revised its system of distribution requirements and allocated funds for the development of courses to add new categories into the distribution requirements.

Administrators say one reason they prefer a directed review is that it enables them to respond to developments in individual fields more easily.

“Many schools find it very difficult to talk about a curriculum as a whole. I think most curriculum reform nowadays is done on a small group level or a department level,” Boyer says.

Yale’s most recent curricular review, however, took on an even more expansive mission. It aimed to address all aspects of the undergraduate academic experience, including both problems unique to Yale and present at schools nationwide.

“The key for us in the Yale report was not to compare ourselves to other schools, and what they offer or don’t, but to ask ourselves where our strong and weak links were, trying to enhance the strong and work on the weak links, and to grow with an eye to what Yale in particular had to offer students,” Associate Dean of Yale College Penelope Laurans writes in an e-mail.

“We asked again and again: given the new millennium, and the altered vision we bring to this review from last time, what can Yale do to enhance its strengths and fix its weaknesses in order to meet the new imperatives and address the old issues,” she continues.

At the University of Chicago, the Core curriculum—put in place before Harvard’s—was an outgrowth of the university’s unique traditions, says Boyer.

“I don’t know that many other schools would want to do what Chicago and Columbia have done,” in terms of core curricula, he says.

Chicago’s Core requires students to take specific sequences of courses in different subjects. The school asks Core professors to teach outside of their areas of expertise, Boyer says, to encourage interdisciplinary education.

At Columbia, students also must take courses in a series of areas, including contemporary civilization and physical education. Many of these courses are taught in small seminars with less than 20 students, according to the college’s website.

Awareness of how willing faculty members at an institution will be to implement curricular reforms is another important consideration for any curricular review, administrators say.

“In every university, you have to be confident of the faculty culture, of how tolerant the faculty is for new innovations,” Boyer says.

Sometimes, incentives for faculty members—such as bonuses and a lighter courseload—can increase their willingness to change established practices. But administrators say these incentives will not ensure the long-term success of a curriculum.