In what members say was an attempt to summarize the committee’s commonly held ideas, Kirby presented the group with the first proposal for a draft report at the end of January. This first draft was never released outside of the committee, but was included in the documents reviewed by The Crimson.

“Bill’s like a border collie, he’s got sheep going all over the place,” Maier says of Kirby’s response to disparate committee opinion. “I think [the draft] was Bill’s effort at pulling us together.”

The draft­, which is of uncertain authorship, called for all students to take one course each in quantitative and analytical reasoning, moral reasoning, and international studies, along with two courses each from the sciences, the study of societies, and the humanities and arts.

Unlike the current Core, students would have been able to fulfill most of those requirements by choosing departmental classes, but would have had to take at least one Harvard College Course.

However, a number of committee members disagreed with the specificity of the draft.

“If you start putting a lot of requirements in, you might as well stick with the old Core,” says Maier.

As work progressed throughout February, the moral reasoning requirement was removed from the report and replaced by less restrictive requirements and a statement that “special attention” should be given to such courses. The international studies requirement was removed as well, partially because committee members expected more students to participate in international studies outside of their general education requirements.

Committee members say the removal of the moral reasoning requirement was—and remains—one issue of contention within the committee.

“There is, as of yet, a state far from convergence of committee opinion” on this issue and others, committee member and Mallinckrodt Professor of Engineering Sciences and Geophysics James R. Rice writes in an e-mail.

Apart from disagreement on distribution requirements, the first draft of the report and later revisions also reflected the committee’s lack of consensus on what the format of Harvard College Courses should be.

“We couldn’t reach agreement on the [Harvard College Courses],” says Menand.

In the end, the committee recommended that Harvard College Courses impart “knowledge critical for the moral and civic challenges that undergraduates face in the wider world,” and that the courses consist of two hour-long general sessions with an associated seminar.

While many faculty members had hoped to see examples of well thought-out curricula for a Harvard College Course, the report only suggested broad areas of study in which courses could be offered.

And for those concerned with large class sizes, the Draft Final Report, which was obtained by The Crimson in March, spoke to “the advantages of increased interaction between students and instructors in a small-group setting” but suggested little that would differ fundamentally from the sections currently offered with Core classes, which surveys routinely show are a low point of students’ Harvard experiences.

Committee members say that they see the seminar portion of Harvard College Courses as being similar to the sections in Social Studies 10, “Introduction to Social Studies,” where section leaders and the course head meet weekly to ensure a high standard of instruction.