Divinity School May Revise Curriculum and Requirements

The Divinity School may reorganize its seven departments into three divisions and change requirements for graduate students in a move to focus on the common heritage of religious studies.

George E. Rupp, dean of the Div School, proposed the curriculum change yesterday at its annual convocation. He added that the school's departments and five degree programs emphasize diversity rather than coherence.

Continuity among departments would give the Div School a stronger background for addressing intellectual questions, Rupp said.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken

The divisions of a new curriculum would be like concentric circles, Rupp said. Biblical Studies would be the innermost circle, with Christianity and Culture the second circle and Comparative Religion the outermost one.

Rupp also proposed requiring a set--but uneven--distribution of courses. Students would select how to distribute the courses among the divisions. The distribution courses could account for 12 of the 16 semester courses in a two-year program.

"Any parallel to the Core Curriculum is in the distribution requirements," Arthur J. Dyck, Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics, said yesterday. "The Div School has always been skittish about requirements--we've gotten around them thorugh integrated exams," he added.

Dyck said he is adopting a "wait-and-see attitude" before judging the proposal, but Rupp said he is "expecting fireworks" about his speech.

The Div School faculty will meet next week for its annual discussion of the convocation address.

Under the proposal, the Old and New Testament departments would form the Biblical studies divison. Church History, Theology, Applied Theology and Ethics would comprise the second division, and History of Religions the third. The departments themselves would not be merged, Rupp said.