Six Courses Join Gen Ed Menu

The General Education Standing Committee approved six classes in their last meeting of the year, bringing the total number of Gen Ed courses to 45.

Sixteen of these classes will be taught in Fall 2008, and 20 will be taught in Spring 2009.

Gen Ed committee chair Jay M. Harris said that he’s hoping for 64 Gen Ed classes to be taught per semester by 2010.

Social Analysis 10: “Principles of Economics,” whose proposal the Economics Department submitted last February, has yet to be approved for Gen Ed credit.

But two introductory courses were approved at the final meeting: “Life Sciences 1a” and “Life Sciences 1b,” both of which will count for Science of Living Systems credit.

An advanced math class was also approved. Mathematics professor Lauren K. Williams’ Mathematics 154: “Probability Theory” will count toward Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning.

“Obviously that’s a course most students are never going to take,” Harris said. “But if we’re going to tell math students, ‘You have to do EMR [Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning], it’s important that we provide a really advanced course.”

Since all students will be taking classes in eight generic subject areas—as opposed to courses in the seven out of 11 categories furthest from their concentrations—they inevitably will be taking Gen Ed classes within their fields.

Three humanities classes were also approved.

Classics professor Kathleen M. Coleman’s Culture and Belief 17: “Institutional Violence and Public Spectacle: The Case of the Roman Games”—adapted from Historical Study B-06—will probe why institutionalized violence was so popular in ancient Rome.

Romance languages and literature professor Doris Sommer’s Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 13: “Cultural Agents”—formerly Spanish 280— was also approved. It will include a “Social Agents Fair” where students meet local change artists.

English Department Chair James T. Engell ’73 will teach Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 15: “Elements of Rhetoric”—formerly English 34. It will explore “contemporary applications” of “classical rhetorical theory.”

Next year’s Gen Ed classes will be listed at the front of the 2008-2009 course catalog.

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu.