To the Editor:
As you reported ("College faculty to vote in April," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 11/13/05), the College has this year reached the culmination of its pilot curriculum experiment, in which we will use what we have learned over the past four years as part of the basis for deciding how the curriculum should be organized for the entire College. I would like to clarify one point in your article: While this past September we admitted the final cohort of freshmen into the program, we have not terminated the pilot curriculum. It will continue to be the organizing principle for these students until they are graduated several years from now.
The pilot was designed as a finite experiment, to be used as a vehicle for enabling the faculty to make a more informed decision about the future of the College curriculum. As such, it has been enormously helpful by generating a deeper understanding of how much and what kinds of structure students need to be able to construct for themselves a superb liberal arts education from the rich resources available to them at Penn. This is an exciting time for me to begin my service as College dean, and I look forward to the final stage of our curriculum review initiative as it unfolds this spring.
Dennis DeTurck The writer is incoming dean of the College.
