Curricular Review Report Released

Nearly a semester into the College’s curricular review, professors charged with leading the undertaking gave their first public update yesterday, solidifying the priorities previously laid out by University President Lawrence H. Summers and other top deans while revealing at least one surprise—a proposal for a one-month January term.

In a letter to the community, the Curricular Review Steering Committee identified six main themes that will guide the review: internationalization, a focus on science, interdisciplinary study, faculty-student interaction, increased student research options and expanded undergraduate work with other University schools.

The mid-year report goes on to outline the long list of questions that four faculty committees have opted to tackle over the next semester, among them the question of the academic calendar.

According to the report, a committee that is examining pedagogy will consider the possibility of moving exams before winter break, a proposal in line with a push by Harvard administrators to synchronize schedules University-wide.

But the proposal mentioned in the report goes a step further, suggesting a “4-1-4” schedule that would add a one-month term in January “to create new opportunities for innovative instruction and student-faculty contact.”

A variety of colleges—especially New England liberal-arts schools—use a so-called “J-term” to offer students the chance to branch out from traditional curricular offerings.

Faculty and administrators said yesterday that the report merely outlines vague possibilities, of which the 4-1-4 plan is one.

“What we describe [here] is neither a detailed curricular structure nor a fully-developed philosophy to guide us in making proposals,” the report says. “We are not there yet.”

The report was made public late yesterday afternoon after it was reviewed by the Faculty Council—the 18-member body of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that advises the dean and sets the agenda for Faculty meetings.

Baird Professor of Science Gary J. Feldman, a member of the council, said that although the report was one of the council’s main agenda items today, there was little discussion or debate due to the document’s vagueness.

“There’s not a whole lot of substance in it,” Feldman said. “I didn’t sense any particular issue at this point, because there are no real proposals yet.”

The themes mentioned were also familiar ones, hewing closely to the “aspirations” that Summers sketched out in a Commencement address on undergraduate education last June.

Globalization of the curriculum, increased attention to science instruction and improved faculty-student interaction were all tenets of his address.

He has frequently harped on other themes, like encouraging interdisciplinary study and work between the University’s schools.

Members of the Steering Committee said the report’s six guiding themes were their own—emerging from internal discussions and feedback from the four committees, faculty and students.

“We’ve certainly been talking to President Summers along the way in the curricular review, but these [ideas] came from conversations among the steering committee,” said Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz. “We’re all part of the same community.”

The Steering Committee and the four faculty working groups—on overall academic experience, pedagogy, general education and concentrations—have been meeting regularly over the course of the semester.

The report contains a summary of their work so far.

The group on overall academic experience reported that it will form three task forces: one to study advising and the freshman year, another on study abroad and a third on the relationship between curricular and extracurricular activities.

The general education committee said it will break down into three task forces that will jointly consider whether undergraduates are best suited by certain required courses, a Core program similar to the current one or a broader distribution system in which students could fulfill requirements with any course in a certain field.

The group’s framework betrayed little evidence of where the Faculty stands on what is likely to be a key question: whether the curriculum should seek to teach ways of thinking, the philosophy behind the current Core, or a particular body of knowledge.

The concentrations group will create three teams to look into examining the role of tutorials and other central concentration experiences, expanding interdisciplinary work and reconsidering the timing of concentration choice.

The pedagogy working group said it will investigate student-faculty interaction, student research opportunities, technology and instruction, teaching and how it is evaluated and writing instruction as well as the academic calendar.

As the first semester of the review winds down with more questions than answers, some wonder whether the ambitious one-year timeframe set for arriving at curricular recommendations is still realistic.

Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilization Peter K. Bol, who co-chairs the general education committee, said although he hopes to complete the review soon, a lot of work remains before the committees arrive at a new curriculum.

“The sooner the better,” he said. “If I think a consensus emerges that is shared widely among the Faculty, then I think we wouldn’t hesitate to go forward. I don’t think we’ve gotten to that point.”

Wolcowitz acknowledged that it remains unclear whether completing the review by June is tenable.

“We will continue working towards having a fuller report for the Faculty later in the year,” he said. “Exactly what will be in the report is hard to say.”

Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 said he still hopes to complete most of the review within the academic year.

“The hope is that we will have some guiding principles clearly defined by the end of this academic year, and that we will spend next year turning those principles into curricular policy,” Gross said.

However, he warned that despite hopes a new curriculum could be in place by Fall 2005, implementation of the new system could take time, noting that setting up the Core took four years after its ratification by the Faculty.

Discussion of the review and the report are currently slated as the main topic of discussion at next Tuesday’s Faculty meeting.

—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.