CORRECTION APPENDED

After a number of vulnerable twilight years, the 30-year-old Core Curriculum is prepared at last to give way as the nucleus of all educational experiences at Harvard and be supplanted by the new General Education program beginning in 2009.

This is not, however, to imply that the Core’s passing will be swift and complete; it will linger alongside its replacement through 2012, as the incoming class of freshman will be allowed to choose one set of requirements or the other.

The administrative decision to blur the line between two educational eras, however, seems less like an easygoing brand of understanding and more like a collective vote of “no confidence” in the much-heralded replacement to the broken Core. What is more, this freedom of choice may banish our new enrollees to bureaucratic quicksand, as a rocky curricular transition will likely leave them with neither substantial course selection nor the guidance to make essential academic decisions.

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Michael D. Smith recently confirmed that, at least next year, the number of course options to count toward General Education will be extremely limited. In the beginning, at least, it appears that the faculty can offer undergraduates no guarantees as to how many courses will count towards either requirement and when those courses will be offered in coming years.

Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core program, confirmed that a climate of uncertainty prevailed for her office: “We’re working on next week and next month, as is every other department in FAS.” This sort of insecurity might trail after any period of flux, but it must be accompanied by a resolute show of good faith in the system to which we are transitioning. If current underclassmen and incoming freshmen are to be confronted with an unstable curricular landscape at large, then the College should at least maximize the number of departmental courses that count for Core credit. Students should not be impeded on the road to graduation by the insistence that every course accepted for Core credit meet bureaucratic and rigid guidelines fixed by faculty legislation–regulations which provoked much of the outgoing program’s unpopularity.

Beyond a general slackening of such demands, undergraduates affected by the transition also deserve clear, unequivocal information about the new Gen Ed program and the indefinite nature of their own position. That the College is yet to outline the specifics of Gen Ed to the incoming lass of 2012 in its admissions information is simply appalling. This is hardly the time for faculty and administrators to hide tumult under the guise of calm: A transitional plan should be articulated before the student body, without a moment’s hesitation on questions of academic eligibility or distinct curricular options.

Nowhere is this frankness more essential than in that often lackluster component of Harvard’s undergraduate experience: advising. By this fall, when the first Gen Ed courses appear in the catalog, every student and every adviser should know the mechanics of both curricula in place and, for the Class of 2012, the ramifications of choosing either.

Of course, this latter need presupposes that the decision to force this choice on incoming freshmen will be preserved, in spite of its glaring problems. This decision does not encourage student freedom, but rather general ambiguity and confusion. Moreover, it will likely condemn one group or the other to a few semesters’ worth of inhospitable course choices from scant options and even worse advising—not the ideal way to kick off a new epoch of learning in Cambridge.

With the Class of 2012’s arrival only months away, the University administration cannot continue to behave like some undergraduates, putting off the absolutely necessary until the very last moment. (CORRECTION BELOW)

SERIES
This editorial is the first in a two-part series that addresses the transition from Harvard’s Core Curriculum to General Education.

CORRECTION
This editorial incorrectly stated that the Gen Ed Committee will be disbanded at the end of the year to be reconstituted as a number of smaller subcommittees. In fact, the Core Standing Committee will be disbanded at the end of year. The Crimson regrets the error.