Progress, But No Votes, For Review

While administrators once hoped to begin voting on how to revamp Harvard College’s curriculum by this spring, a variety of setbacks—including the controversy surrounding embattled University President Lawrence H. Summers—has resulted in a year of only gradual progress, leading to dozens of revised recommendations, but no votes and little time for Faculty discussion.

More than half a dozen committees met throughout the year to examine the recommendations of last April’s Report on the Harvard College Curricular Review and to produce suggestions of their own.

While development of the centerpiece of last year’s report—the replacement of the Core Curriculum with a set of knowledge-based general education requirements—is still caught at the committee level, other committees have submitted ideas to the full faculty for review.

This piecemeal quality of the review has raised concerns about coherence and the potential for progress from this point forward.

“It’s hard to see how any sort of part of the curricular review could go through while the central parts have some large question marks attached to them,” said Chair of the Classics Department Richard F. Thomas.

Some of the suggestions that have been advanced include the creation of new introductory science courses stressing the connections between disciplines and of a Freshmen Writing Tutorial that would be graded satisfactory/unsatisfactory and would replace the Expository Writing requirement.

The committees also affirmed recommendations from the 2004 report such as a cap of 12 courses on concentration requirements, a later deadline for declaring concentrations, and a more supportive advising system.

In addition to these and other academic changes, the committees rejected last April’s recommendation to move to a Yale-style housing system and put forth a number of suggestions for how to structure a possible January term.

AN UNSURE FOUNDATION

As the 2004-2005 academic year opened, the ongoing Harvard College Curricular Review was faced with the challenge of addressing an acknowledged lack of “guiding vision” that had aroused criticism from the Faculty last year.

Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby—one of the leaders of the curricular review—appeared unfazed in the face of faculty concern and said the review would build upon last year’s progress.

“I do not wish to lose this momentum,” Kirby wrote in a Sept. 20, 2004 letter to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). “My goal is to have a set of formal proposals that can be presented to the Faculty by the end of the academic year.”

Within a week, the curricular review was dealt another blow when Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz abruptly left his post as one of three leaders of the review.

Days after Wolcowitz’s departure, a second round of committees was created to address specific areas of the undergraduate experience, including general education, writing instruction, and the advising system.

WINTER OF DISCUSSION

Throughout the fall semester and the early months of spring semester, the committees worked to debate the merits of previous recommendations and pounded out suggestions of their own.

In December, Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71, one of two remaining leaders of the review after Wolcowitz’s departure, cited “greater flexibility, more opportunities, and fewer requirements” as the principles guiding the work of the committees.

Committee members updated faculty and students on their discussions at a series of five forums for faculty and students, who hotly debated many aspects of the review.

The Dec. 10 Forum on General Education presented the Faculty with sketches of new Harvard College Courses—a collection of foundational, interdisciplinary courses to be taken in conjunction with distribution requirements—but met with significant uncertainty from the faculty.

In light of this dissatisfaction, faculty members said they needed more time for review and debate.

“There is a question of whether [the] function [of general education] has been sufficiently discussed,” Thomas said after the meeting. “There’s been very little dialogue.”

On Jan. 13, former Undergraduate Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 led a forum for students that focused largely on the need for better advising. The Jan. 18 Forum on Concentrations and Advising was held for the Faculty to discuss similar issues.

Next in line was the first forum of the spring semester, held on Feb. 2, where the Committee on Science and Technology Education presented plans for new introductory courses in the physical and life sciences. Some of the results of that committee’s labor­—the Life Sciences 1a and 1b class track—will begin next fall.

Professors were enthusiastic about the courses’ potential to improve the course sequences for science concentrators, but others expressed worry that the courses might not be accessible for non-concentrators.

“I think it’s a little unfortunate that these committees went off on a parallel track,” says Louis Menand, Bass professor of English and American literature and language. “[The courses] are not appropriate for many Harvard students.”

At a Feb. 17 Forum on Writing, Speaking, and Effective Teaching, James Engell ’73—the Chairman of the Committee to Review Expository Writing—said his committee was working to address the need for instruction in public speaking and for continued writing instruction across the concentrations.

A MISSED DEADLINE

As the planned forums drew to a close, public discussion of the review was sharply curtailed while discussion of Summers’ leadership and his controversial Jan. 14 remarks on women consumed Faculty meetings, culminating in the March 15 “lack of confidence” vote.

Anticipating the need for more time for discussion, Kirby told the Faculty Council—the 18-member FAS governing board—on Feb. 9 that more Faculty meetings would likely be added to the calendar this semester in order to allow a vote, but those meetings never materialized.

Kirby acknowledged at an April 12 Faculty meeting that serious discussion would have to continue into next year.

“Together, all of us, as a Faculty, need to review, renew, and re-energize the Harvard College curriculum in our own time and in our own way,” he said.

RESULT OF A YEAR’S WORK

Eight months after the second round of curricular review committees had been formed, nearly all of the committees released draft reports of their conclusions to the Faculty in May.

One central report, from the Committee on General Education, remained in committee after its early readers criticized its lack of detail and an overarching vision. (Please see story, page B1.)

The presentations of the reports before the Faculty marked the first significant discussion of the curricular review during faculty meetings since before the Summers controversy.

Offering a wide-range of suggestions for improvement of the College, the reports highlighted specific changes to be made. A detailed schedule for advising was created, along with specific recommendations for January term activities, some of which included language study abroad and culinary arts classes. Proposals were also made to create centers to coordinate writing resources, as well as advising resources.

The fragmented nature of the review led some to caution committee members to be aware of the review as a whole, rather than just their own parts of it.

“[The committees] are working pretty much independently, which is okay as long as someone is looking for intersections,” says Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Phillips professor of early American history and chair of the Pedagogical Improvement Committee.

But Senior Lecturer on Molecular and Cellular Biology Robert A. Lue, a member of three curricular review committees, acknowledges that, “general education is a very central piece” of the curricular review. He adds, however, that faculty members remained enthusiastic about the review even as the General Education committee faces difficulties.

“I absolutely don’t agree that [the Curricular Review] is horrifically stalled,” he says. “There is a lot of stuff going on and things are moving...the faculty are really excited.”

—Staff writer Allison A. Frost can be reached at afrost@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.