Faculty Meeting Cancelled Till Feb.

After a fall semester that overflowed with debate on curricular review and the future of general education at Harvard, one would expect members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to come running back to University Hall this month to continue their discussions.

Well, not so fast.

Due to “insufficient business,” the Faculty Meeting scheduled for Jan. 9, has been canceled by the Docket Committee, the group of three professors who determine the agenda of Faculty Meetings.

With this cancellation, the full Faculty will not meet again—to discuss general education or any other business—until Feb. 13.

Members of the Docket Committee, reached over the winter break, said that the cancellation should not be seen as a sign of a lack of dedication or interest on the part of faculty members.

“January, as you know, is a time when Faculty as well as students have a lot of to do that they are not able to accomplish when classes are in session,” historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote in an e-mail. “[The] FAS does indeed have important business to conduct this year, but the most important business also requires prior preparation.”

“Be assured that FAS committees—including the Gen Ed and Teaching Task Forces—are working hard to prepare things for the February meeting,” Ulrich, the 300th Anniversary University professor, added.

According to Judith L. Ryan, Weary professor of German and comparative literature, professors need more time to consider the most recent general education proposals: “the timing of the January meeting didn’t allow for the kind of careful preparation we think appropriate for this matter.”

The holding of any meeting in January is a recent phenomenon, according to Secretary of the Faculty David B. Fithian. The Faculty has met during reading period twice—last year and in 2005—in the past 24 years, after the current schedule was first approved.

The Faculty will now have five meetings between now and Commencement in order to enact legislation on the curricular review.

—Staff writer Samuel P. Jacobs can be reached at jacobs@fas.harvard.edu.