“We won’t be a cozy Slavic Studies department,” Welch said. There “has always shown a correlation between size of undergraduate program and satisfaction.”

Additionally, Welch said that the seminar requirement “does involve some challenges,” including scheduling seminars to accommodate universal enrollment.

But Levitsky said he is aware of the potential unpopularity of the reforms.

“One of the things that students love about government is its flexibility,” he said. “We’re making it less flexible. We’re imposing more requirements.”

But some undergraduate government concentrators were supportive of the ambitious reforms.

“Having a heavier quantitative emphasis will make the concentration a lot better,” government concentrator Brendan M. Fogarty ’12 said. “A lot of people graduate with a pretty poorly developed sense of quantitative reasoning.”

Greg A. Dibella ’12, who is a peer concentration counselor for the government department, also said that freshmen and sophomores are often “looking for a little more guidance.”

“I feel good about the upcoming changes,” Levitsky said. “The committee did its homework.”

—Nikita Kansra can be reached at nkansra01@college.harvard.edu.

—Sabrina A. Mohamed can be reached at smohamed@college.harvard.edu.