Gov Department Updates Graduate Study Program

The Government Department will present entering graduate students this fall with a revamped curriculum which some professors call the department's biggest reform in 30 years.

The changes, intended to give Ph.D. candidates more structured requirements and a more well-rounded grasp of the field, are the culmination of two years of work by a departmental committee. The group composed of eight professors and four graduate students--surveyed alumni, faculty, and advanced degree programs at comparable institutions.

The committee was formed in 1982, partly in response to graduate students' complaints that they were "sinking or swimming at their own risk in the department," said James Q Wilson, professor of Government, who was not a committee member.

Wilson will co-teach one of the new "field seminars" 10 to 15-person courses covering the major theories and current controversies in each of four sub areas.

Under the requirements, the 30 incoming Ph.D. candidates will have to specialize in one of these areas American politics, international relations, political theory, or comparative politics and then choose both a minor field of study and a "focus" subject in preparation for general examinations at the end of the second year.

The reforms will not affect undergraduates.

The revisions also come on the heels of a perception by faculty and students that Harvard's Ph.D. program in government left students too specialized for the job market.

Morris P Florina, the graduate student adviser, said the department's graduates "don't have the luxury of teaching in disparate fields," once they are hired "They have to know a lot about everything--especially at small colleges," he added.

Robert D. Putnam, the department's chairman, called the old program "too fragmented," noting that students had the liberty to choose to specialize in "a cafeteria of 20 or more particular fields."

In part, this freedom stemmed from the specific interests of a diverse faculty, Putnam said. It reflected "the traditional method of training graduate students--known as apprenticeship--in which each student would learn all that one faculty member knew.

The revised requirements, by contrast, put Harvard's program more in line with the modern national trend towards requiring both a general understanding of the field and a specific focus, Putnam said.

"It's fair to say that Harvard was probably more out of step with other universities," said Fiorina, who said the revisions make the program more rational.

Though the requirements do not strictly follow any other university's model, they reflect a similar trend in the nation's top universities, experts said.

"Most of the large departments have switched to de-personalized instruction," said Giuseppe Di Palma, chairman of the Political Science Department at the University of California at Berkeley.

While all future students will have to follow the revised program, current Ph.D. candidates will have the option of accepting or rejecting the new program of study.