After months of meetings, five of the six central committees of the Harvard College Curricular Review have completed draft reports of their findings for the first major revamping of the curriculum in decades.

Working separately, the committees have identified specific shortcomings in the current undergraduate experience and drafted targeted suggestions for improvement.

The reports have been distributed to the Faculty in preparation for tomorrow’s Faculty meeting.

The draft reports largely echo and expand upon the recommendations of the April 2004 Report on the Harvard College Curricular Review, but reject last year’s controversial suggestion to move to a Yale-style housing system.

This year’s findings include recognition of the disparate nature of Harvard’s resources in writing, advising, and teaching, and call for a more unified structure. The reports also stress the need to create a richer and more stimulating undergraduate experience—from restructured science courses to an array of unconventional programs that would make up a possible January Term.

“The [April 2004] report laid out some very broad brush strokes,” said Robert A. Lue, a senior lecturer on molecular and cellular biology and member of three curricular review committees. “What you’re beginning to see in these reports is something that is a bit more detailed.”

The five draft reports are the first major products of this year’s review process to be released to the entire Faculty. The sixth committee’s draft, addressing General Education, was never widely released due to criticism that it lacks an over-arching vision. The General Education Committee is currently reviewing their report.

COMMITTEE ON ADVISING AND COUNSELING

The advising report supported last year’s call for a greater separation between residential and academic advising, as well as increased faculty participation in advising.

The committee highlighted the need for an identifiable concentration adviser for all students and increased guidance for students during the semesters prior to concentration declaration.

The reports included a suggested timetable to guide the interactions between advisers and advisees.

The advising committee writes in the report that Harvard currently has “an overall system [of advising] that is highly decentralized.”

In response to this decentralization and the resulting student dissatisfaction with advising, the committee recommends the creation of a new position—a dean of advising—along with a peer advising program, under which each first-year student would be paired with an upperclassman during the summer before their arrival at Harvard.

This year’s report rejects last year’s endorsement of Yale-style housing—in which students are assigned to an upperclass House upon matriculation, instead of after the freshman year—citing the distance between the Yard and Houses as their reason.

COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE TEACHING OF WRITING AND SPEAKING