Urban Planning Course Approved as New Core Curriculum Offering

The Standing Committee on the Core approved one new Core class and two departmental classes to be taken for Core credit last week in its last meeting of the academic year.

Next year, Alex Krieger, professor in practice of urban design and chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, will teach a Literature and Arts B course entitled, "Designing the American City: Civic Aspirations and Urban Forms."

Krieger teaches a similar course at the Graduate School of Design.

Krieger wrote in an e-mail that he believes Harvard currently lacks in courses on the urban environment.

"It seems like a major deficiency in undergraduate education...not to provide perspective on urban life and the way that cities and urbanized regions are shaped," Krieger wrote.

In addition to approving Krieger's course, the Standing Committee also accepted two non-Core courses to confer Core credit.

Afro-American Studies 10, "Introduction to Afro-American Studies," was approved as a departmental alternative for Historical Studies A.

Both variations of "English 151: The 19th-Century Novel," taught by Philip J. Fisher, Reid professor of English and American literature, and Elaine Scarry, Cabot professor of aesthetics and the general theory of value, were approved as departmental alternatives for Literature and Arts A.

--Staff writer Melissa R. Brewster can be reached at brewst@fas.harvard.edu.