Knowles Focusing on Core Review, Resources

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles will spend the rest of his summer concentrating on a review of the core curriculum setting up a resources committee and overseeing the construction around the campus, he said in an interview yesterday.

The dean looking refreshed after a recent holiday in Great Britain said the year-and-a-half review is "beginning to take shape."

"A curriculum needs to be constantly reexamined to keep it fresh," Knowles said. "It's good to rattle the cages."

A review of undergraduate concentrations which has been ongoing for the past several years will continue as the core review progresses. That review has resulted in "a few small changes," Knowles said.

Knowles is also setting up a committee to look at the allocation of resources.

"It's a new group to help and advise me both in the distribution of resources within the Faculty and to look at resource allocation between central administration and FAS," Knowles said. "That's an area I want to be attentive to."

Knowles pointed to increased use of the Internet on campus as one area that was demanding an increasing amount of the University's funds.

"Even while we're economizing and working on the remains of the deficit there are counterpressures," Knowles said. "There are these pressures to increase them [technological resources] more and more."

"We're going to have to study, analyze and make sure it's the right thing to do," he added.

Knowles said the physical aspects of the campus are also on his mind.

The dean remarked that the decision to begin renovating the first-year dormitories was made at the right time, and that most of the projects have stayed within the budget.

The renovations of Memorial Hall--including additions of a first-year dining hall and the Loker Commons, a center of campus social life--are good for the community, Knowles said.

"Will it be a splendid addition, much better than the Union for ordinary dining? Unquestionably," Knowles said. "Will there be a splendid new commons underneath? Yes, unquestionably."

Still Knowles acknowledged that promises about the Loker Commons have exceeded reality.

"Will it be everything anyone hopes for? No building can fulfill everything everyone wants," he said. "Too many promises are made."

The commons touted by some administrators as a new student center, has been criticized by some students as being unsuited for that purpose.

Members of the Undergraduate Council have specifically pointed to the lack of a computer center, inexpensive restaurants and guaranteed seating for students in the commons.

Knowles said the impending consolidation of most of the humanities departments in the Union--complex the so-called humanities quad--is "really what drives me forward."

"The major goal for the fall is to help findfunds to start the Union complex in March as soonas we can," Knowles said. "It's going to changethe way people live and intersect and discuss andhave their working lives."

"The area of greatest need was in thehumanities," Knowles said. "The faculty in thehumanities had grown idiosyncratically since WorldWar II."

"You can't be colleagues if you in four placesat once," Knowles said

"The major goal for the fall is to help findfunds to start the Union complex in March as soonas we can," Knowles said. "It's going to changethe way people live and intersect and discuss andhave their working lives."

"The area of greatest need was in thehumanities," Knowles said. "The faculty in thehumanities had grown idiosyncratically since WorldWar II."

"You can't be colleagues if you in four placesat once," Knowles said