Sheila R. Adams ’05 was on the fast track at the Undergraduate Council.

As vice-chair of the Student Affairs Committee—the group the last two council presidents have chaired—she was expected by many colleagues to run for vice president in the fall.

But when Adams chose to spend the spring semester studying in Brazil, it put a dent in her plans for leadership on the council and the Black Students Association, where she was also active.

If Harvard’s deans have their way, a thousand more students will face the same dilemma as Adams. The recently released curricular review recommendations plan for 25 percent of students—or about 200 students a semester—to study abroad during the term, up from the 11 percent who currently leave for a semester.

And the remaining students will be asked to head overseas during the summer for research or courses under an “expectation” of international experience that will be included in the curriculum for all non-international undergraduates, and will be noted on students’ transcripts.

Adams’ experience was typical. She calls her time in Rio de Janeiro extremely rewarding, particularly because she could debate world affairs with other international students. But like other students who have taken courses abroad, Adams, a sociology concentrator, says that her classes abroad were much less challenging than at Harvard.

If a hundred more students a semester study abroad, administrators say they will find programs that meet Harvard’s high academic standards.

But the changes to campus social and residential life that the absence of these students will bring could be more significant and harder than expected for the remaining undergraduates to handle. At a College with 305 student groups, making room for the many students who take a semester abroad, like Adams, means organizations will have to revise their leadership timetables. Houses will have to work to reintegrate returning students into House life, while their absence could mean accommodating more transfer and visiting students to fill up empty rooms.

Jane Edwards, the director of the two-year-old Office of International Programs (OIP), is charged with figuring out how to send this greater mass of students away, and how to reintegrate them once they return.

She says that she expects extracurriculars and Houses will adapt to the increase, and that she hopes students will not see the new push for study abroad as just another added requirement.

As of now, the curricular review results propose an “expectation”—not a requirement—of overseas study or work, meaning that students could just choose to ignore the suggestion. Only 6.4 percent of students polled by The Crimson in December listed study abroad as the most pressing issue for the review to address.

If undergraduates don’t respond to the push, Edwards suggests that Harvard’s goal of preparing its student body for future success might be compromised.

“Given the shape of the world, [an undergraduate experience] needs to include assistance with developing global competence,” she says.

NEW HORIZONS, NEW MODELS

Edwards’ biggest initial challenge may be overcoming student inertia, and she hopes to use the office to marshal Harvard’s alumni and internationally oriented faculty and departments to make studying, interning and working abroad easier.