Gen Ed Slowly Adapted for Fall

Eager students browsing for classes this summer will find a new section in their course catalogs, featuring classes in each of the eight categories of the recently created general education program, which is set to begin phasing out the long-standing Core Curriculum this fall.

Nine months have passed since Gen Ed was approved, but only five courses have been vetted to fit within the new categories thus far, said Jay M. Harris, Cabot House master and the chair of the committee in charge of implementing Gen Ed.

Approved courses include Literature and Arts 51: “Virgil,” taught by classics professor Richard F. Thomas; a modified version of Humanities 18: “For the Love of God and His Prophet,” taught by Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations professor Ali S. Asani; Foreign Cultures 70: “Islam,” also taught by Asani; and a new course called “Poetry Without Borders,” to be taught by Slavic Languages and Literatures professor Stephanie Sandler.

The Gen Ed committee expects roughly another 12 courses to be approved within the next few weeks, Harris said.

Although current freshmen and sophomores may have the option of graduating under Gen Ed, the curriculum will not go fully into effect until fall 2009, making the Class of 2013 the first to enter under the new curriculum.

Harris said that while progress in creating courses may seem sluggish at present, he hopes that two to three classes per category will be available for students this fall.

“I’m confident there will be a robust menu of courses by 2009,” Harris said, projecting a dozen classes in each of the eight categories.

But faculty are still approaching the creation of new courses with a sense of “cautious optimism,” said James H. Stock, chair of the economics department.

“The only reason for caution is that we haven’t seen it in operation yet,” Stock said. “But people think that it’s going to be a good framework.”

Several professors have cited the time-intensive nature of course development as a major reason for the lag on their end.

“[A class] is not something you can just throw together,” Stock said. “You have to make it very well thought out...It just takes some time to do it well.”

In order to get a class approved for Gen Ed credit, professors must submit an application to the Gen Ed implementation committee describing their proposed course and how it fits into the goals of the new curriculum as a whole, Harris said.

Currently offered courses can also be adapted to fit within the Gen Ed guidelines. For example, Literature and Arts C-56: “Putting Modernism Together,” taught by professor Daniel Albright, has already been approved, Harris said.

Albright could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Under the new set of requirements, students will be required to take courses in eight categories: “Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding,” “Culture and Belief,” “Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning,” “Ethical Reasoning,” “Science of Living Systems,” “Science of the Physical Universe,” “Societies of the World,” and “the United States in the World.”

Courses that currently fall under certain Core areas may be able to closely map with areas of Gen Ed and would therefore require less adjustment, Harris said.

“I think most, if not all, of the Moral Reasoning courses should be able to migrate without too much reworking,” Harris said.

He added that courses in such fields as medical ethics, legal ethics, and business ethics would also be able to fulfill Gen Ed requirements within the category of “Ethical Reasoning,” where they may not have counted for credit before.

Harris said that certain areas, specifically “Societies of the World” and “the United States in the World,” do not directly match up with old areas, making it more difficult to quickly adapt old courses.

“Those are the categories we’re most actively recruiting at this point,” Harris said.

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu.