Gen Ed Planner's Courses Approved

Beginning next semester, English professor Louis Menand, one of the architects of the new General Education curriculum, will be teaching two courses for the program he helped design.

Two more Gen Ed courses have also been approved recently—one to be taught by former University President Lawrence H. Summers.

Menand will be co-teaching Humanities 10: “An Introductory Humanities Colloquium” and the new course English 158: “The Novel in Europe.” Both will fulfill the Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding requirement.

Menand said he had the philosophy of the new program in mind when he began planning “The Novel in Europe,” which he will be co-teaching with English professor Leah Price ’91.

Deviating from Core Curriculum practices, both newly approved courses will be limited in enrollment and will be taught solely by professors. Professor Stephen J. Greenblatt will be co-teaching the Humanities 10 course with Menand. Neither class will employ teaching fellows. The faculty members will lead lectures as well as sections, and students will be required to obtain faculty permission in order to enroll in either of the two courses.

Government professor Jennifer L. Hochschild and Alexander “Zander” N. Li ’08, members of the Gen Ed committee, said that the committee does not have an official policy on limiting enrollment.

Menand agreed that there would be frustration if all Gen Ed courses limited enrollment.

“That’s the reason you need many options,” he said.

Menand said that his personal vision of Gen Ed includes the availability of “plenty of attractive ways to fulfill requirements.” He urged the Gen Ed committee to “open the floodgates” and “not be too rigid about approving new courses.”

Beginning in the spring of 2009, students can also take Economics 1400: “The Contents of Globalization: Issues, Actors, and Decisions” taught by Summers and Kennedy School economics professor Lant Pritchett for Societies of the World credit.

The committee also approved EDC-186: “American Health Care Policy: Choices and Consequences” taught by health care policy professor Richard Frank for the United States in the World category.

—Staff writer Bora Fezga can be reached at bfezga@fas.harvard.edu.