Harris said he believes that the program’s transformative effect on undergraduate education has been muted by the economic downturn that coincided with the creation of Gen Ed and slowed faculty hiring.

“There are [faculty] searches going on all the time, but it’s mostly replacement. It will take a little bit longer than we had hoped to really develop,” he said.

While current faculty members have been encouraged to reinvigorate their teaching methods, Harris said, more new professors would be able to adapt faster to the mindset of the new curriculum and offer more Gen Ed classes.

Ali S. Asani ’77, chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, said that he hopes to introduce livestreams of lectures and online sections in his course Culture and Belief 12: “For the Love of God and His Prophet: Religion, Literature, and the Arts in Muslim Cultures.”

“Lots of students don’t come to all the lectures,” Asani said, noting scheduling conflicts and time constraints. Because of Gen Ed, teachers “are not stuck to term papers and finals,” so busy students are “learning better.”

“I think the Gen Ed program, from my personal experience, is far superior to the Core,” Asani said.

“I’ve been able to implement better pedagogical approaches,” he added. “I think it helps people learn at a deeper level, with more personal engagement with the material. I see this in the [Q Guide] evaluations. Because of the new pedagogy, they find it personally transformative.”

Asani, at least, is confident that if the vision of Gen Ed is carried out to its full extent, real educational change will result.

“I would say they learn better,” he said. “It’s sort of obvious.”

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