HCUA Committee Asks For Major in Gen Ed

The Harvard Council for Undergraduate Affairs may recommend tonight that the College allow undergraduates to major in General Education.

The recommendation is contained in a report by the HCUA's "Student Committee on Educational Policy," which two weeks ago described the Doty Report on General Education as "inconsequential" because it did not examine the role of specialization in the College.

The HCUA report calls for the establishment of "a program of Horizontal General Education" to serve as "a meaningful alternative to the specialized character of departmental education." It explains that the Committee on General Education or a new Faculty committee could award an honors or non-honors degree for "a self-designed program of study which cut across several recognized departmental fields."

Given the opportunity to major in Gen Ed, the report claims, "a student would be encouraged to make a conscious examination of his own educational needs and desires and would thus be potentially more self-conscious of his education."

"We see a danger in the Faculty's either passing or rejecting the recommendations of the Doty Committee at this time, because these suggestions are incomplete," it says. "We cannot see the value of considering such administrative and mechanical questions (1) without broadening the framework of discussion into 'what college should be at this time' and (2) without fully evaluating such alternative proposals as we have set forth."

Besides asking for a Gen Ed major, the report urges "the development of a 'dual personality' within the Faculty" to reflect the difference between teaching in a college and teaching in a graduate school and calls for "more experimentation with seminars, tutorial, theses, and independent study available with a definite interdisciplinary character."