After Gen Ed Proposal, Teaching Campaign Looks Ahead

After a committee reviewing General Education recommended a program-wide section target of 12 students, members of a graduate student campaign aimed at lowering section sizes are reevaluating their priorities.

Last month, the Gen Ed review committee’s final proposal acknowledged the campaign’s long-lauded goal when it recommended a target of 12 students for all Gen Ed course sections. Members of the Harvard Teaching Campaign said they view the proposal—which faculty will likely vote on in the spring—as a positive development, they hope to expand that target to all College courses.

“We see that as a major step forward, but there’s lots more work to be done,” campaign member Christina V. Groeger ’08 said. “We’re hoping to see that policy extended and deepened across not just Gen Ed, but all lecture courses and labs as well.”

Supporters of the Harvard Teaching Campaign marched around Harvard Yard with a petition last spring. By Karl M. Aspelund

Members of the campaign last met with Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris in August, Groeger said, noting that at the time they were told the target size for Gen Ed courses would be 15 students. That target applied to Gen Ed sections last semester, Groeger said.

Groeger said she was told budgetary constraints kept administrators from lowering the target number. Members of the teaching campaign had specifically asked for a cap of 12 in a petition they delivered to Massachusetts Hall last April.

Now that the Gen Ed committee has officially recognized the size of 12, the Teaching Campaign pans to reboot. Members have considered the differences between departments when strategizing on how to apply a new target cap to all undergraduate courses.

Campaign supporter Andrew B. Donnelly, a teaching fellow in the English department, said reducing section sizes is more important for specific departments, namely those in the humanities.

“What I would like to see is a process where students and the TFs have more input in what the best arrangement for class is to maximize the student learning,” he said.

In sections for science classes—particularly labs—there is less need for round table, intimate discussion, some graduate students say. Post doctoral fellow student Shan Lou, one of 27 teaching fellows for Life Sciences 1b: “An Integrated Introduction to the Life Sciences: Genetics, Genomics, and Evolution,” said she thinks having 16 students in a section works well given the bench-style setup of the room.

“They usually work as a group of four. Most of the discussions and conversations and experiments were carried out in groups,” Lou said of students in her sections.

Aside from classroom setup, Lou also highlighted a notable difference between education in the sciences and the humanities.

“The reason that every student gets at least a chance to talk is because most of the answers are not as long as the humanities courses,” Lou said, referring to answers students supply in sections.

Groeger said the campaign does not intend to create a mandatory policy with a section size limit given the nuances of certain teaching methods.

“If any course head or instructor doesn’t want to have 12-person sections, that’s fine,” she said. “I think in some ways the administration is making it a bit more complicated than it needs to be.”

Looking ahead, Groeger said while graduate students have many concerns outside of teaching, the section size issue should remain the campaign’s primary focus since it “creates the most common ground with undergraduates and faculty.”

“We’re going to be having some planning meetings to kind of figure out what’s the best way to keep pressure on the administration,” Groeger said. “It’s an ongoing issue.”

—Staff writer Leah S. Yared can be reached at leah.yared@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @Leah_Yared.