Curricular Reform Moves Ahead

Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Educational Policy Committee (EPC) met yesterday to “clean up” their legislation that proposes postponing concentration choice to the middle of sophomore year and adding “secondary concentrations” akin to minors.

The meeting moves FAS one step closer to casting its first votes on the curricular review. The legislation will be presented to the 19-member Faculty Council today and will likely face a final vote at the April 4 meeting of the full Faculty.

Initial drafts of the legislation were presented at the March 14 meeting of the entire Faculty. After minor revisions, “the crux of the proposals are the same as they were last week,” said Professor of Economics David I. Laibson ’88, an EPC member.

Even if the legislation passes next month, Laibson said, it is unlikely that the Class of ’09 would be affected by the move to postpone concentration choice.

But all current students—with the exception of seniors—may have the opportunity to list a “secondary field” on their transcripts.

“I would hope that even students who are currently juniors will be able to have secondary fields,” Laibson said.

However, the full Faculty has yet to discuss the implementation of the secondary field proposal.

Under that proposal, students who completed between four and six courses in a field different from their primary concentration could have that marked on their transcripts, without having to complete the integrative thesis currently required of joint concentrators.

At yesterday’s meeting, the EPC “remove[d] some specific language relation to joint concentrations” from the legislation, Laibson said. “We’re not legislating any change in the joint concentration program. We’re simply introducing a new program,” he said.

Also yesterday, the EPC amended its legislation to address confusion among Faculty members who had asked whether the bills’ lengthy explanatory notes—which had contained key details of the proposals—would be binding. The committee moved some language from those notes into the text of the legislation itself, according to Laibson.

In an interview Monday, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby said it is very likely that professors will vote on both EPC proposals at the April 4 session.

“We have lost basically a term and a half...because of tensions in other areas,” Kirby said. But he stressed that the Faculty was still “very enthusiastic” about the concentration reforms.

­—Staff writer Lois E. Beckett can be reached at lbeckett@fas.harvard.edu.

­—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.