General Education Courses Still Few in Quantity

While six courses were approved for General Education credit late last month, one of the curriculum’s eight required categories now only lists one newly created course, and another still offers no new classes.

As 1600 incoming freshman and approximately half of the Class of 2012 prepare to fulfill Gen Ed requirements, whether or not the nascent program has taken its intended shape remains in question.

While two of the courses approved on February 26 are brand new, four of them are currently offered.

There will be no changes to Government 20: “Introduction to Comparative Politics,” which will now fulfill the Societies of the World requirement, said the course’s professor, Steven R. Levitsky.

Levitsky, whose class is one of the most popular undergraduate courses, said that there was no clear set of criteria to make Gov 20 fit within Gen Ed’s goals.

“I am on the Gen Ed committee and I still don’t know what the philosophy is,” Levitsky said.

Three other courses currently offered at Harvard—Government 10: “Introduction to Political Thought,” Government 50: “Introduction to Political Science Research Methods,” and Science A-41: “The Einstein Revolution”—have also been approved for General Education credit.

The other two approved courses are newly-developed, but there is still some uncertainty about whether one of them will even be available next year. The Gen Ed Web site notes that Science of the Physical Universe 16: “Physics in the 21st Century” is to be offered in the Spring of 2010, but the professor of the course, Christopher W. Stubbs, said that this might not be the case.

“Gen Ed and the Core are not the only teaching demands our department has,” Stubbs said, adding that his probable sabbatical in the 2010-2011 academic year might also contribute to the course’s postponement.

So far, this is the only newly-developed course to have been approved for the Science of the Physical Universe category, one of the eight required fields under the new curriculum.

Stubbs said his department has been trying hard to provide students with an adequate selection of courses, adding that he is sure students will have good offerings.

The other newly-developed course—Societies of the World 20: “China in the Wider World 1600-2000”—has yet to post a description.

—Staff writer Rachel A. Stark can be reached at rstark@fas.harvard.edu