“There’s a definite sense, I think, that greater access to study abroad...is very much to be desired.”
Mendelsohn said yesterday that the report’s recommendation that student-faculty contact be expanded is an essential—but challenging—part of a liberal education.
“We are committed to giving a liberal education,” he said. “The question is how do we operationalize it.”
In separate business, the Council also heard a report from the Standing Committee on the Status of Women about the Faculty’s progress in hiring more women as professors.
Feldman said committee members proposed that the position of a dean for affirmative action be reinstated to help the new divisional deans ensure that faculty searches include women as candidates.
“I think the general feeling was that one should see how the divisional deans handle this and whatever works best we should go with,” Feldman said. “It’s not an issue that is based on any particular principle but on what works best.”
Feldman said that the Council did not reach any conclusion in its discussions.
—Staff writer Joshua D. Gottlieb can be reached at jdgottl@fas.harvard.edu.