Government Department Proposes Revised Curriculum

The Government Department announced Tuesday possible changes to the curriculum that would cut the number of required courses by one, lengthen the sophomore tutorial and narrow the scope of the concentration.

These proposals, devised by students and faculty in the department, will go into effect for the Class of 2004 if passed by the Educational Policy Committee (EPC), a university-wide body that makes final decisions on Faculty proposals. The EPC will meet April 18th to discuss the issue.

"I'm confident the proposals will be approved. They are in keeping with the interest of the EPC," said Associate Professor of Government Louise Richardson who represented the Undergraduate Advisory Council (UAC), a group of students, in the Faculty meetings.

The proposals include a reduction in the number of courses required to graduate--from thirteen classes to twelve for non-honors students and from fifteen to fourteen for honors students.

If the changes pass, government concentrators of the class of 2004 and beyond will not have to take any introductory courses, such as Government 10, Government 20 and Government 30. But they will still be required to take a course in each of the four subfields: international relations, comparative government, American government and political theory.

Under the new plan, the department would also extend sophomore tutorial from one semester to two. In this second semester, students would study comparative government and international relations.

Sophomore tutorial would also be accompanied by weekly lectures by professors. Richardson said this "will build a community by having all the sophomores in the same room."

Students would now take three related courses rather than the current four and would not have to divide the courses between two different fields, such as English and history or foreign literature and sociology.

The proposals are in part a response to student requests, according to Richardson. She said that students would be less restricted and would have more freedom to plan their own program if the plan is adopted.

One of the goals of the changes is to offer more opportunities for interaction between the students and the Faculty, with the idea that professors will spend more time advising, in addition to teaching.

In a preliminary meeting with the UAC, Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel, Dillon Professor of International Affairs Jorge I. Dominguez and Richardson asked the students to recommend changes to the department.

Marc Stad '01, a government concentrator and member of UAC, said this dialogue between students and Faculty was the "most refreshing" aspect of this process.

"This dispels the rooted notion that big concentrations (e.g. government) are truly rooted in bureaucracy," Stad said.

Some changes, like those to sophomore tutorial, have been in the works for a few years.

Stad said he found his introductory classes repetitive. For example, he said, the material in his introductory course in American Government overlapped with another government course about the American presidents.

Richardson said she thinks the changes will be popular with students.