Committee on Study of Religion Endorses Section Cap

The Committee on the Study of Religion endorsed a 12-student cap on section sizes Tuesday, becoming the sixth department or committee to extend its support of the Harvard Teaching Campaign, a group of teaching fellows and students calling for smaller sections.

According to Committee Chair Michael J. Puett, members unanimously endorsed the motion to limit sections to 12 students. The motion does not necessarily mean that courses under the committee’s supervision will see smaller section sizes.

Puett, who teaches Ethical Reasoning 18: “Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory,” said on Wednesday that he believes oversized sections can have a significant negative impact on the degree of active learning that takes place in the classroom.

Puett said that financial concerns pose a major barrier to reducing section sizes, but that Harvard’s educational mission justifies the investment.

“It costs money to do this, but we are an educational institution, and this is a great place for us to put our money to make a statement that we really care about education,” Puett said. “Hopefully we’ll make a large argument to the universities throughout America that this is something we think is important.”

So far, the departments that have endorsed the section cap are all in the humanities or the social sciences. Luis A. Perez ’16, an organizer of the Teaching Campaign, said undergraduate members of the group are ramping up outreach to the faculty of departments in the sciences.

A referendum question on reducing section sizes to 12 has been placed on the upcoming Undergraduate Council election ballot, after a petition to submit the question for referendum vote garnered 1,374 undergraduate signatures. Puett sent an email last week to students enrolled in Ethical Reasoning 18, about 700 in total according to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Registrar’s Office, to make them aware of the ballot question.

—Staff writer Zara Zhang can be reached at zara.zhang@thecrimson.com.