Curricular Review May Be Imminent

Since he took office July 1, President Lawrence H. Summers has met at least twice with top University deans to discuss major changes to the undergraduate academic program, initiating a review process that could result in an overhaul of the Core Curriculum, concentration requirements and other basic elements of the Harvard classroom experience.

The officials—including Summers, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles and Dean for Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82—have discussed the formation of an ad hoc committee to carry out a review of the entire curriculum.

Knowles said yesterday that the review would take place within the next few months. Whatever form it ultimately takes, he said, it could lead to a “more focused scrutiny of one or more of the four primary pieces of the curriculum: the Core, the concentrations, Freshman Seminars and electives.”

The initiative is part of a recent drive, encouraged by Summers, to improve the undergraduate experience at Harvard.

The Freshman Seminar program has already been doubled in size, and the Faculty hopes to increase study abroad opportunities by the start of the 2002-03 academic year.

Some professors and administrators, however, worry that such moves will be futile unless the Faculty first enacts broader curricular changes.

Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies Jay M. Harris raised such concerns at Tuesday’s Faculty meeting.

“I am concerned that we are looking at one piece of a larger puzzle,” Harris said, in a discussion of further expansion of the Freshman Seminar program.

Summers said he agrees with Harris for the most part, but that he supports smaller improvements that can be made now, while broader curricular changes are studied.

“I think it would be a serious mistake for us to be paralyzed by the interdependence” of the smaller and larger reform proposals, Summers said.

Planning For The Future

By expanding the Freshman Seminar program, among other steps, the Faculty is seeking to increase student access to professors.

But this expansion requires an increase in the size of the faculty. The University has tried to attract new professors by making leaves of absence more attractive for senior faculty members.

To determine that a more generous leave policy would be feasible while maintaining enough faculty on duty to staff a full complement of course offerings, FAS has initiated a “curricular planning exercise.”

In the exercise, which the Faculty Council discussed at its Wednesday meeting, individual departments are being asked to list the courses professors consider essential, including courses for concentrators, courses for non-concentrators, Core courses, graduate-level courses and Freshman Seminars.

Several departments have begun this process and others will do so in coming weeks.

“There is a legitimate concern about the ability to maintain basic department offerings, and that is why this curricular planning exercise is extremely important,” Summers told the Faculty at this week’s meeting.

Unlike its peer institutions, Harvard has never before required departments to fill out actual forms detailing their course offerings, Knowles said.

Professor of Government and Faculty Council member Jennifer L. Hochschild said she does not anticipate the forms being burdensome, but that planning for the distant future may be difficult.

“I expect that it’s not too hard to anticipate the courses needed for the following year,” Hochschild said. But in the longer term, “curricula change, student interests change, faculty come and go.”

Summers said at the Faculty meeting that the curricular planning exercise will be taken into account in future hiring decisions.

“As we contemplate the growth of the Faculty in the years ahead, those departments who best argue through curricular planning will be better able to argue for growth,” he said.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.