FAS Considers Reducing Core Requirements

The Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) will meet today to discuss three proposals for significant academic policy change—reducing the Core requirement, eliminating honors degrees based solely on grade point average and increasing Advanced Standing requirements.

While no definite plan has been proposed, the CUE will discuss the possibility of only requiring seven Core courses for graduation. The change would seek to encourage enrollment in freshman seminars.

Today’s meeting will also focus on the possible elimination of the cum laude in general studies—an honor earned by just over a quarter of the Class of 2001.

The proposal calling to increase requirements for Advanced Standing eligibility starting with the Class of 2007 is likely to go to a Faculty vote on Feb. 12.

If accepted, the proposal would raise the requirement from four Advanced Placement tests with a minimum score of four to four tests each with scores of five.

Students would also be able to wait until a year before graduation to choose whether or not to accept Advanced Standing. Currently, first-years must choose whether to accept Advanced Standing by second semester.

These proposed changes were first suggested in a Jan. 23 memo to the Faculty by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 and Associate Dean of Freshman and Director of Advanced Placement Rory A. Browne.

“We believe it is time both to raise the bar for Advanced Standing eligibility and to relax the pressure for commitment on the part of eligible students,” the memo reads.

Both these proposals and the two other academic issues will be discussed by the CUE committee today, but the committee —composed of five students, five faculty members, Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82 and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz—is not likely to take a formal vote.

“All these issues have been discussed with the Faculty before, but now it is just a question of flushing out what exactly should be proposed to the Faculty,” said Marc D. Hauser, a professor of psychology and a member of CUE.

Hauser said he thinks members of the CUE will support the proposal regarding Advanced Standing.

“The change is a good one because many professors feel that students who receive four’s are not always well-prepared for their courses,” Hauser said.

Hauser said he was also not aware of any dissent in the Faculty regarding Pedersen’s proposal to eliminate the level of cum laude degrees not based on performance within a concentration—although the measure is still in the preliminary stages.

In explaining the proposal, Pedersen pointed to the difference in honors awarded within a concentration and the broader honors degree that is based only on a student’s grade point average.

These different levels of honors have been widely publicized in recent discussions of grade inflation.

“It seems odd to award honors to students who have not earned honors in their concentrations, given that work in the concentration is the most important component of undergraduates’ work here,” Pedersen wrote in an e-mail.

The third item on the agenda suggests reducing the number of Core requirements from eight to seven—a measure that has been discussed off and on for four years.

The Standing Committee on the Core first suggested reducing Core requirements in 1997, but eventually rejected the proposal.

Pedersen said the recent increase in the Freshman Seminar program had sparked renewed interest in the issue.

She said that with fewer Core requirements, students could make better use of the freshman seminar electives.

In fact, Pedersen and the Core Standing Committee had initially explored the possibility of integrating freshman seminars into the Core, but concluded that “Freshman Seminar instructors should not be constrained by the Core guidelines as they design their seminars.”

According to Hauser, the proposal is likely to be a controversial one.

“Many people have very personal feelings about this issue as it is one about striking a balance between general education and enough flexibility,” Hauser said.

Student CUE member Rohit Chopra ’04 said he was pleased with the new initiatives.

“I am happy to see that we have Deans who are aggressively addressing these issues —particularly ones that ease requirements for students,” Chopra said. “It is important that we tackle this stuff.”

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.