Gen Ed Prepares Fall Launch

The General Education committee—which approved approximately 150 of 221 total classes that will count for Gen Ed credit this past spring—is readying the new curriculum for full implementation in the fall, as a new Gen Ed office prepares to move into fresh quarters in the Holyoke Center.

Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Stephanie H. Kenen will serve as the administrative director of the new Gen Ed office, and Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris, who also chairs the Gen Ed committee, will serve as its faculty director.

The Gen Ed office will absorb its predecessor, the Core office, according to College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds.

Gen Ed committee member and Slavic Professor Julie Buckler said that Harris told the committee at a recent meeting that the new office will be in the Holyoke Center and that the administration is hoping to have offices available for teaching fellows. Harris, Kenen, Hammonds, and Core Program Director Susan W. Lewis declined to comment further.

In the meantime, the fate of Core office staffers remains uncertain as they prepare to move out of their office at 77 Dunster St. at the end of June.

The Office of International Programs—which was moved from the basement of University Hall to 2 Arrow St. this year—will move into the Core Program’s office at 77 Dunster St., according to OIP Director Catherine H. Winnie.

Financial constraints have prevented the Gen Ed committee from pursuing any money-intensive initiatives in the short term, including a proposed great books track, according to Gen Ed committee members.

Kenen said that while the committee had been worried that the committee would not receive enough course proposals, those worries were dispelled by a flood of proposals this spring.

“Faculty, like students, wait till the deadline to get their proposals in—and after,” said Kenen, who added that about 80 course proposals came in around the March 20 deadline.

But former Gen Ed committee member Alexander N. Chase-Levenson ’08 said that the committee was more concerned with the variety of courses available than their number.

Gen Ed committee members admit that there is still be more work to be done.

While the humanities category Aesthetic and Interpretative Understanding boasts 15 new Gen Ed courses—with 36 total classes counting for credit—five other categories, including both in the sciences, have only a few newly developed Gen Ed classes.

A quarter of the 221 total approved classes—174 of which will be offered next year, the rest the year after—are Gen Ed classes, while the remaining 156 courses will be departmental alternatives and Core classes counting for Gen Ed credit, according to Gen Ed Program Manager Anne Marie E. Calareso.

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