Faculty Council Debates Gen Ed

Members of the Faculty Council debated the merits of instituting Harvard College Courses to replace the Core Curriculum at their meeting yesterday.

The council—the 18-member governing body of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—considered a draft of the Committee on General Education’s recommendations for the ongoing curricular review.

“The discussion was very probing,” said Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, a council member.

The preliminary General Education report calls for students to fulfill distribution requirements by taking a total of nine classes in three areas—humanities, study of society, and natural sciences.

Under the proposed changes, students would have to include among those nine at least two Harvard College Courses—interdisciplinary classes meant to provide foundational knowledge, rather than emphasizing “modes of thought,” as the current Core courses do.

The Harvard College Courses would be taken outside of the area of a student’s concentration, while the other distributional requirements could also count for concentration credit, according to Weary Professor of German and Comparative Literature Judith L. Ryan, a council member.

Ryan said one benefit of the Harvard College Courses is that they would give students common subjects to discuss outside of class.

Though Faculty Council members praised the general outlook of the report, they said they were unsure what guiding principles buttressed the system of Harvard College Courses.

“It’s the view on the part of some of us that it needed greater focus,” Mendelsohn said.

Council members also questioned exactly what mix of Harvard College Courses and distribution classes would be required of students and whether there would be enough science classes accessible to non-scientists, Mendelsohn said.

Ryan said one potential drawback to the proposed Harvard College Courses is their large size.

“I still believe that more courses with a better student-faculty ratio would be better for students and for faculty,” she said.

Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture and of African and African American Studies Gwendolyn D. Shaw questioned what role junior faculty members would have in the development of the Harvard College Courses, since they have been proposed as long-term offerings.

At yesterday’s meeting, the council also talked about tenure appointments, comparing faculty appointment processes across departments and exploring the possibility of labeling positions as “tenure-track” jobs.

“What the Faculty of Arts and Sciences would like to do is bring departments onto the same playing field with respect to the rights and privileges of junior faculty,” Ryan said.

Also at yesterday’s meeting, the six council members who met on Monday with two members of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s top governing board, reported back to the rest of the council.

Phillips Professor of Early American History Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who attended the meeting with the Corporation members, said it was “really productive.”

“We talked informally and practically,” Ulrich said.

She said that similar meetings between council and Corporation members were “likely” in the future.

Ulrich said council members may discuss their meeting with the Corporation briefly at next Tuesday’s full Faculty meeting, in order to keep the rest of the Faculty informed.

“We want to be transparent,” Ulrich said.

A “report on the progress and schedule of the Curricular Review,” presented by Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences William C. Kirby and Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71, is also on the agenda for the March 15 Faculty meeting.

But continued discussion of University President Lawrence H. Summers’ leadership will likely consume much of the meeting. The Faculty will debate two motions, one of which calls for a vote of no confidence in Summers’ tenure. The other motion includes a list of grievances against Summers and calls for the Faculty to have an increased say in University governance.

—Staff writer Sara E. Polsky can be reached at polsky@fas.harvard.edu.