Group To Draft Gen Ed Legislation

The Faculty Council yesterday appointed three of its members to form a committee that could bring the new General Education proposals one step closer to implementation.

The committee, which will be composed of Weary Professor of German and Comparative Literature Judith L. Ryan, Professor of History Peter E. Gordon, and Emery Professor of Chemistry Eric N. Jacobsen, will draft legislation from the Task Force on General Education’s final report in order to present it for a vote before the full Faculty.

“The only way to enact [the new General Education] program or to make changes to it is really through a legislative process,” said Secretary of the Faculty David B. Fithian, who will work with the committee along with Assistant Dean of the College Stephanie H. Kenen.

The new legislation is not expected to be a radical departure from the task force’s proposals, which were unveiled Feb. 7.

“We agreed that the legislation would not in fact diverge from the suggestions put forward in the report,” Ryan said. “This is not going to be an occasion for tweaking, just translation.”

After the council’s approval, the legislation will be circulated among professors. Faculty will then be able to propose amendments, which will be voted on with the legislation, most likely at the full Faculty meeting in April.

“Once it is in a legislative format, there is a more formal way to decide which changes should be made, if any,” Fithian said. “And the decision about any changes ends up being made by the entire Faculty, not just the council or another committee.”

Fithian also said that the legislative process will direct attention to the question of implementing the new curriculum, although specifics will most likely be left for a later committee to determine.

“The fact that these decisions have to be made may be marked in the legislation, but my sense is that the legislation is not going to deal with all the nitty-gritty of implementation details,” he said.

Ryan said that it could take more than one meeting to complete the actual vote on the new curriculum proposal.

“It presumably won’t all be able to happen at the April meeting because it’s a complex set of proposals and there are many different views about it,” she said. “We are hoping that by the end of May we will be able to have a final vote on the faculty floor.”

IN OTHER MATTERS

The Faculty Council also discussed the report released last month by the Task Force on Teaching and Career Development, which suggested ways to improve the teaching climate at Harvard.

“There was definitely a sense that all faculty could do a better job of developing our skills,” said Theda R. Skocpol, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and chair of the task force

Skocpol said that the cooperation of deans, departments, and faculty leaders will be needed to devote adequate resources to successfully implementing the task force’s suggestions.

The report is set to be discussed at the next full Faculty meeting on March 13.

—Staff writer Alexandra Hiatt can be reached at ahiatt@fas.harvard.edu.