FAS Debates Many Points

The Faculty Council approved a motion yesterday that would raise the minimum SAT II score necessary to fulfill the Harvard College language requirement from 600 to 700.

The proposal, presented by Romance Languages and Literatures Professor Virginie Greene, would also give students an extra year to fulfill the language requirement, as well as the option to petition for coursework at other institutions—both in the United States and abroad—to count towards its completion.

The motion will go before the full Faculty next Tuesday for a final vote. If approved, the policy would go into effect for next year’s incoming freshmen, the Class of 2013—also the first class that will be uniformly subject to the new General Education requirements.

But the first item on the Council’s agenda was the financial crisis. FAS Dean Michael D. Smith told the Council that he has been receiving multiple plans from different departments and said that he is pleased with discussions on the matter so far.

As part of his continuing response to the current financial crisis, Smith had been working to release details on an ‘80-percent plan’ for cutting the FAS budget at the end of January, but has yet to do so.

Two top administrators also sought to assure the Council that the new General Education program—which currently has 70 courses approved for an incoming freshman class of over 1,600—remains on track. Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds and Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris, who also chairs the Gen Ed committee, said that they are continuing to urge professors to develop new Gen Ed courses.

English Professor Stephen J. Greenblatt, who chairs the Task Force on the Arts, presented his committee’s recommendations to the Faculty Council. Speaking at an Undergraduate Council meeting on Monday, University President Drew G. Faust acknowledged that not all of the Task Force’s recommendations would go forward immediately because of the current financial situation.

Hammonds also asked her colleagues to consider what should happen during next year’s inaugural January ‘J-term’—the four-week stint in next year’s revamped University calendar whose structure remains uncertain. Even the name of the period remains unclear. But Hammonds has settled on calling it the “January experience.”

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

—Staff writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.