With Gen Ed’s Rise, Core Program Loses Assistant Director

Assistant Director of the Core Program Charles G. Ruberto ’88, the administration’s primary contact for students seeking information about the Core and for faculty teaching Core courses, announced in an e-mail Friday that he will be leaving for a new position outside Harvard.

Following the merger of the Core and General Education offices this past summer, Ruberto, who had held his post since 2005, took on some additional roles related to General Education.

“All administrative functions related to the Core have been part of the Gen Ed office since last July, and most of the work of supporting courses has been merged into one set of processes,” wrote Associate Dean of the Program in General Education Stephanie H. Kenen in an e-mail.

Susan W. Lewis, who had been director of the Core Program, retired last June.

Professor of Science Robert P. Kirshner ’70 wrote in an e-mail that he worked with Ruberto to find support staff for his courses this year.

“As you know, the size of a class is unknown until study cards are filed, so there’s a delicate balance to be struck between signing up sufficient staff of TFs and making sure you don’t waste money by having too many,” he wrote. “He seemed to understand all sides of this and made good choices about how many TFs to commit.”

Kenen wrote that in the coming year most Core courses will be “revised and submitted for Gen Ed, with only a handful remaining solely in the Core program.”

She added that about half of the class of 2012 has switched to General Education, as have a several students in the class of 2011.

“We expect those numbers to increase, so the amount of work that is specific to the Core has already been dramatically reduced and will continue to decrease,” she wrote.

Students with Core questions can now contact Kenen or Associate Director of the Program in General Education Anne Marie E. Calareso, or e-mail core@fas.harvard.edu.

“We’ll continue to work with students on all of those issues in order to ensure that all students under the Core program are able to meet those requirements in order to graduate,” she wrote.

—Staff writer Julie R. Barzilay can be reached at jbarzilay13@college.harvard.edu.