FAS Dean Foretells Core's Opening

Dean of the Faculty Michael D. Smith has urged professors to allow more of their departmental courses to count for Core credit, a move intented to provide options for students who will graduate under the Core as the curriculum transitions toward a new system of General Education.

Smith said that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will loosen the requirements for departmental courses to fulfill Core requirements. The development, was officially announced in an e-mail sent by Smith to faculty members on Friday afternoon.

Although the curricular review was completed this spring, the Gen Ed requirements that will replace the Core will not apply to all students until after the current freshman class graduates, Jay M. Harris, the director of the committee established to implement Gen Ed, told The Crimson last week.

As a result, all currently enrolled students will have the option of graduating under the Core system, though Core classes may diminish in number over the next few years, Smith wrote in the e-mail.

“It will be difficult to sustain this program in its current form over the course of the next several years,” Smith wrote. “Few faculty members are likely to develop new courses for the Core program, and many of the current Core courses will be reshaped and reworked to conform to new General Education guidelines.”

To provide students graduating under the Core with a “rich and robust menu of courses,” the committees governing the Core and Gen Ed—the Standing Committee on the Core Program and the Standing Committee on General Education—will alleviate certain restrictions on departmental classes to allow a greater number to be considered for Core credit, Smith wrote.

Under the plan, classes that are not repeated on a regular basis—including those taught by visiting faculty—can still be considered as departmental alternates, said Director of the Core Program Susan W. Lewis.

Smith also emphasized that classes with prerequisites or without final exams are not excluded from counting for Core credit. Those standards may have been forgotten by faculty and students alike, Lewis said.

As new courses open for Core credit, Lewis said, students will be notified via e-mail or letter if a class they took or are currently enrolled in now qualifies to fulfill Core requirements.

A similar push to open up department alternatives occurred last spring under then-Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, but this time, the pressure to loosen restrictions is more imminent, Lewis said.

“It didn’t make sense to continue to require faculty who are proposing courses as departmental alternates to guarantee they’ll be given again, because we’re moving into a transition into another program,” Lewis said.

Richard F. Thomas, professor of Greek and Latin, said the expansion is necessary because professors are less willing to produce new classes for the Core, creating a “crunch in terms of available courses” for students.

He added that he has heard no objections from faculty to the charge set forth by the letter.

“It seems to be voluntary, so I haven’t heard any reaction to this,” Thomas said.

Lewis predicted that a “significant number” of students in the Class of 2011—who are expected to have a choice between the Core and Gen Ed—will still elect to finish under the Core, making the availability of courses especially important.

This year, the two committees governing the Core and Gen Ed will actively search for departmental courses that may fit into Core categories. After this year, that task will be handled solely by the Standing Committee on General Education.

“The use of departmental courses is an area where there has to be constant vigilance and activity,” Lewis said.

—Lois E. Beckett contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.