Faculty Council Rethinks Options on Preregistration

Even as the nation grew closer by the second to conflict with Iraq, the conversation at yesterday’s Faculty Council meeting was again dominated by the interminable issue of preregistration.

But the atmosphere yesterday was far different from what it was at a council meeting just two weeks ago, where the majority of council members strongly supported the proposal to require students to register for classes a semester in advance.

A presentation by students against preregistration failed to sway professors at that meeting. But after the passionate opposition expressed by ten professors at last week’s Faculty meeting, preregistration found far fewer supporters among the council yesterday.

What began as a discussion of the general issues behind preregistration soon turned into an intense interchange among the 18 faculty members and the various deans present at the closed session.

After Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby abandoned his plans for preregistration last week in the face of open criticism from both professors and students, he said that he wanted to address the concerns that had motivated the proposal in upcoming Faculty meetings.

“Dean Kirby took [the conversation] to the issue of preregistration,” said Professor of History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn. “He clearly wanted more feedback.”

The faculty brainstormed for about half an hour on the problems of lotteried courses, unprepared teaching fellows and the lack of time for adequate advising, with the conversation sometimes reaching a feverish pitch.

The issue of shopping period, in particular, drew “strong sentiments” from the faculty assembled yesterday, according to one council member. Much like the Faculty meeting earlier this month, the concern that preregistration would lead to the death of shopping week—and thus limit students’ freedom in course selection—was passionately expressed.

Several solutions were proposed at the meeting, including the implementation of a policy by which students would submit a formal, yet non-binding, plan of study in the middle of the preceding semester.

The council also discussed ways to improve course forecasting using extant data, perhaps tapping the abilities of the computer science department.

“The idea of the discussion today was to solve some of the problems that preregistration was supposed to,” said Dean of Undergraduate Education Benedict H. Gross ’71. “We reaffirmed our commitment to graduate students, to give them a better idea of what they will be teaching.”

However, there was no decision about when the issue would come up again.

Before the discussion on preregistration yesterday, the Faculty Council also heard a briefing on the University’s emergency preparedness plans, as well as an announcement that there will be a discussion at next month’s Faculty meeting on free speech during wartime.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. O’Brien can be reached at robrien@fas.harvard.edu.