Summers Delivers Tribute to Knowles

The Faculty Room in University Hall was packed yesterday.

Surrounded by portaits of Harvard presidents from years gone by, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles received a standing ovation from his peers just a day after announcing he will step down from his post in June.

The warm reception at yesterday’s regularly-scheduled Faculty meeting followed a statement by University President Lawrence H. Summers lauding Knowles for contributions to the Faculty during his 11 years as dean. He praised Knowles for the “practical” way he ran FAS and for his tireless devotion to his job.

“The light in Jeremy’s office is as close as Harvard comes to an eternal flame,” Summers said.

Following Summers’ tribute, the Faculty proceeded to regular business, amending its legislation on Advanced Standing and discussing the possibility of reducing Core requirements from eight to seven.

Currently, a student must have earned scores of four or five on four separate Advanced Placement tests to be eligible for Advanced Standing. The stronger rules, passed unanimously yesterday, raise that requirement: students must score five on all four exams.

The Faculty also devoted about half an hour of discussion to the possiblity of reducing Core requirements.

Reducing Core requirements would give students more control over their academic schedules, said Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82, who proposed the measure.

Between the Core Curriculum, the Expository Writing program and a language requirement that some students must meet, Harvard imposes up to 12 general education requirements on its undergraduates—a burden the Pedersen said is far heavier than those placed on students by Harvard’s peer institutions.

As the Faculty continues to expand the freshman seminar program, eliminating a Core requirement would make first-years feel freer to take a seminar, Pedersen said.

Pedersen’s proposal caused quite a stir when she presented it to the Committee on Undergraduate Education late last month. Some Faculty objected that students would use the extra course not to broaden their knowledge but to take another course in their concentration.

Offering a student perspective not often heard at Faculty meetings, Rohit Chopra ’04 said any reduction in Core requirements would encourage students to branch out in their classes.

“Restrictions on student choice have the tendency to extinguish our natural passions in curricular exploration,” Chopra said. “A flexible Core is a win for everyone: smaller classes for the instructor and more choice for the student.”

Several professors took issue with Pedersen’s proposal, saying that slashing Core requirements will not solve more fundamental problems within the Core.

Both Pedersen and Summers acknowledged yesterday that reducing the requirements by one is not a panacea for all the Core’s flaws, but they insisted the proposal would be a good first step.

“It would be very unfortunate from students’ perspectives if the objective of more choice for students was held hostage to a lengthy discussion about how to achieve such choice,” Summers said.

The Core question will remain under discussion at the next Faculty meeting, scheduled for March.

During the question period of yesterday’s meeting, Professor of Greek and Latin Richard F. Thomas told the president and the dean that junior faculty face a serious housing shortage in Cambridge.

Knowles said finding affordable housing is a problem faced by senior and junior faculty alike.

Summers pledged the University’s central administration will work to find more affordable housing for graduate students and Faculty.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.