Faculty To Decrease Required Courses

In the past few semesters, it seems like the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has just been making things harder for undergraduates.

The Core program has seen the addition of a Quantitative Reasoning requirement and the end of the Advanced Placement exam exemption for Science A and B courses, while the Committee on Undergraduate Education has also raised the bar for the foreign language requirement.

But in the past year, Faculty and administrators have recognized that a good liberal arts education requires flexibility as well as rigor.

"You should hope that in the undergraduate years you should have a chance to goof off, in an academic sense," says Peter B. Machinist '66, head tutor for the Near Eastern Languages and Literatures Department. "You know, life is too short. Let's make as much of it as you can."

Over the past year, individual concentrations have been reexamining their requirements, and by next fall many will announce that they will be demanding less of new concentrators.

Less Is More

The push to make the average undergraduate concentration a little more flexible began two years ago, in the spring of 1997, when the Faculty adopted a proposal by former Loeb associate professor in psychology Michael E. Hasselmo '84 to urge academic departments to look into reducing or capping their requirements.

"Rather than `bean-counting,' Faculty were asked to engage in an intellectual exercise, thinking about what it means for a student to gain a liberal arts education that includes concentration in that field and which requirements are really essential," wrote Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz in an e-mail message.

Some Faculty felt that students' educations were dominated by their concentration requirements.

"The problem lies in concentration requirements, which tend to be excessive at Harvard," says Professor of German Peter J. Burgard. "[This is] a natural result...of the tendency to think that one's own field is the most important."

Now, a year later, academic departments, prompted by the Educational Policy Committee (EPC), are at various stages in the process of reevaluating where they stand on concentration requirement reform.

The College has asked for departmental progress reports by the end of this semester and will look for final decisions in the fall.

With some concentrations feeling that they already offer enough freedom for undergraduates and with others feeling like their requirements are not enough, there is no general consensus on what is to be done.

Not in My Backyard

While applauding the overall effort, some concentrations feel they offer enough flexibility already and do not need to change.

Chris L. Foote, associate professor of economics and director for undergraduate studies for the department, says the economics concentration is fine the way it is.

"We've talked about this and basically we don't feel that the economics requirements are that onerous, especially compared to other departments," he says. "Other departments are probably concerned that students get all of the tools they need in the discipline, but we feel that students can learn plenty in the courses they are required to take."

Foote says that the economics concentration, which includes three related-field half-courses in its 13 half-course non-honors requirements, offers enough freedom for students to get a diverse education within the concentration itself.

"You can get three related fields just by getting up in the morning," Foote says.

Concentrations such as physics and social studies have also not found the need to reduce requirements, with head tutors noting that their disciplines demand a strong background in and deep understanding in the field.

Administrators of the classics and linguistics concentrations also see no need to reduce requirements, noting that the departments already offer the chance to fully explore a liberal arts education within the concentration's