Departmental Cores Expanded

Students trying to fulfill core requirements in Historical Studies will now have an additional 12 History Department courses to choose from, after the Core Standing Committee (CSC) approved a total of 22 departmental courses as core alternates at a meeting yesterday afternoon.

Four newly approved departmental courses will count towards Literature and Arts B, three for Moral Reasoning, two for Science A, and one for Social Analysis—all of which will likely apply retroactively, according to CSC student member Aaron D. Chadbourne ’06, who attended yesterday’s meeting.

The push to approve more departmental alternatives for Core requirements now is a result of uncertainty about the future of the curricular review’s General Education proposal, said Harvard College Professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a member of the CSC.

While the faculty continues to debate General Education, expanding Core offerings will alleviate student concern that the Core is too restrictive, Ulrich said.

“If someone would like to take a more challenging course, that seems pretty reasonable,” she said.

Chadbourne said the assistant director of the Core Program, Charles G. Ruberto, told him during yesterday’s meeting that the departmental courses would count retroactively as long as they had not changed significantly since students had taken them, and the Core Office would e-mail eligible students to inform them of this possibility.

Spring Greeney ’09, who took History 10b, “Western Economies, Societies, and Polities: From 1648 to the Present,” this term, said she was “thrilled” that the course would fulfill her Historical Studies A requirement, since she was previously told that student petitions to count departmental courses rarely succeed.

“[This is] a major victory for students,” Chadbourne said, adding that students often find Core-credit restrictions arbitrary.

The committee also approved six fresh Core offerings, from a Historical Studies on American capitalism to a Foreign Cultures on the Silk Road.

The committee approved eight history courses as new alternates for Historical Studies A: History 10b; History 1484, “Europe Since World War II;” History 1638, “US Social History, from 1920 to the Present;” History 1657, “Native America: The East;” History 1658, “Native America: The West;” History 1851, “20th-Century Japan;” History 1840b, “The Economic History of the Middle East Since 1945;” and History 1907, “West Africa from 1800 to the Present,” according to the agenda. Only two departmental courses previously served as alternates for Historical Studies A.

Four departmental courses have been added to the single current Historical Studies B alternate: History 1085, “The Roman Empire: Augustus to Constantine;” History 1611, “American Revolutions in the Atlantic World;” History 1121, “Vengeance, Hatred, and Law in Premodern Europe;” and History 1122, “Persons and Things in Medieval Europe.”

Two departmental music courses and two film courses will count for Literature and Arts B: Music 1a, “Introduction to Music I;” Music 1b, “Introduction to Music II;” Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) 71, “Silent Cinema;” and VES 72, “Sound Cinema.”

Government 1060, “The History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy;” Government 1061, “The History of Modern Political Philosophy;” and Philosophy 178, “Equality and Democracy,” will now satisfy the Moral Reasoning requirement.

Planned departmental courses Physical Sciences 1a and Physical Sciences 1b, “Motion, Size and Life,” will count for Science A credit.

Government 1780, “Introduction to Political Economy,” will join the two current departmental alternates for Social Analysis, Economics 1010a and 1010b.

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