Curricular Review Report Summary Debated in CUE

The curricular review will recommend that Harvard abolish the Core in favor of distributional requirements and push back the concentration choice deadline to the middle of sophomore year when it releases its report on Monday.

According to a source who has seen the summary of the review’s key recommendations that was discussed at a meeting of the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) yesterday, Monday’s report will also suggest “promoting an international experience, making the hard sciences more central to every student’s academic experience...and expecting a small class experience—such as freshman seminars—for everyone.”

But the source said members of the CUE, which is comprised of a handful of students and faculty, questioned—and criticized—some of the summary’s omissions.

“It is unacceptable that a review of this size failed to make improved advising and teaching a primary focus,” said the source, adding that the summary did not address the issues of teaching fellow and section quality and of the required Expository Writing class.

But the two-page summary did not include all the recommendations that will make up the report to be released Monday.

“What the executive summary laid out was the most basic changes that the review is going to suggest for further investigation and possibly legislation next year,” said CUE member Teddy E. Chestnut ’06, who attended the meeting. “It laid out the direction the review is going to be taking.”

Some CUE members also expressed concerns about the “short time frame” of the review, the source said.

“Some members felt that the review might not have sufficiently considered areas of particular concern to the student body,” the source said.

The four curricular review committees whose recommendations serve as the basis for Monday’s report have been meeting regularly since this fall.

Chestnut said that during the meeting, the CUE members identified a number of elements of undergraduate education that went unaddressed in the summary.

“We looked at the executive summary, and said there is some really serious stuff missing from this,” Chestnut added.

“It seemed as though the summary focused on the easy problems, like the Core, and left harder problems, like advising, to be dealt with at a later date,” the source who had seen the report said. “I am confident that advising and these other details will be addressed in the larger report, though perhaps it is problematic that it wasn’t one of the top things.”

According to Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71, the review’s full set of recommendations to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will be released on the curricular review’s website Monday afternoon.

The release will include an eight-page document listing all the recommendations made by the review and a 70-page document providing the rationale behind them, Chestnut said. Faculty will then debate the recommendations at the May 4 and May 18 faculty meetings, and will vote on the proposals next year.

Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05, who was also present at the CUE meeting, said that he urges the student body also to become more involved in responding to the recommendations of the review.

“When the report comes out next week it is absolutely crucial that students read it and share their reactions with UC reps, the review committees and administrators,” he said.

A recommendation that promises to significantly change undergraduate life calls for the College to discard the Core.

“The report recommends that the Core be replaced with a distributional requirement that would be spread over fewer areas of study...but with a greater number of requirements,” the source said.

Despite the greater number of requirements, courses taken for concentration credit and as electives would count as distribution credits.

The source said the report will also recommend the creation of Harvard College Courses—survey or interdisciplinary courses that do not fit neatly within specific concentrations—that would also fulfill distribution requirements.

The summary also recommends moving the concentration choice deadline from its current position at the end of the first year to midway through sophomore year, the source said.

Though a January term was not specifically mentioned, the summary did “recommend an alignment of the academic calendar [with Harvard’s graduate schools] and therefore a unique January experience,” the source said.

The report will also suggest that all students should be expected to have an “international experience” that could include research, study abroad or summer work.

The freshman seminar program would be expanded so that every interested first-year could enroll.

Gross declined to comment on the report yesterday.

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu