Faculty Votes to Form Committee To Administer New Gen Ed Plan

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences yesterday put the finishing touches on the CEP plan for General Education and created a new committee to implement it.

The CEP plan was amended to proserve the Nat Sci bypass, which allows students to avoid the lower level Gen Ed course in that area by taking two departmental courses. The Faculty voted, unanimously and without debate, to replace two committees--the standing committee on General Education and the special Committee on the Freshman Seminar program--with a new committee on General Education.

Following the vote. Dean Ford announced the appointment of Edward T. Wilcox, director of Advanced Standing, as director of the new committee. Wilcox will serve, Ford said after the meeting, as "full time administrative officer in charge of General Education."

Ford, who will chair the committee, said that it will consist of 12 senior faculty members "coming roughly from the three areas," and will he responsible for creating the upper level Gen Ed courses required by the CEP program.

According to the CEP plan, a student may satisfy his Gen Ed requirement in two ways: by taking lower-level Gen Ed courses as he does at present or by first taking a lower level departmental course and then a related upper level Gen Ed course.

Ford said that the number of new of ferings. "Is unlikely to be huge for next fall." Ten or 12 new courses, he said "would be something of an achievement."

Wilcox also anticipated a "slow beginning." "I just don't know how the faculty members will respond," he said.

Faculty members contacted last night indicated that departments would be receptive to requests for new courses from the Committee.

'Depends on Approach'

"There are quite a lot of people who are interested" Bernard Bailyn, professor of History, said. "It depends on how the committee approaches them. I think they'll be responsive."

Before the Faculty voted to amend the CEP plan, it required students wishing to avoid the lower level Gen Ed course in the Natural Sciences to take either one departmental course plus one upper level Gen Ed course, or two departmental courses plus a course fulfilling the requirements for an upper-level Gen Ed course.

This would have required many students to take calculus as a prerequisite to upper level Gen Ed courses in the Natural Sciences.

The bypass, Wendell H. Furry, professor of Physics, said last night was based "on the feeling that ordinary training provides enough information for the upper level courses." Students may now continue to take two departmental courses--whether or not these count for concentration--instead of the lower level Gen Ed courses to satisfy the Natural Sciences requirement.

The voting on the Nat Sci bypass (not to be confused with the Cambridge Inner Belt) was the final stage in the Faculty's consideration of the CEP proposed. The Faculty, Wilcox said yesterday, was "picking up the remains of what had to be done."