Nearly all were in favor and none were opposed on Tuesday when College faculty members voted in a meeting to approve the proposed curriculum for the College of Arts and Sciences.
The new curriculum, which will be implemented for students entering in the fall of 2006, will most notably feature three fewer general requirements, two new interdisciplinary sectors and a cultural analysis requirement.
However, students will only be allowed to count one course used to satisfy the General Requirement toward a major, and AP credits will no longer be able to satisfy general requirements.
College Dean Dennis DeTurck said that of the 450 to 500 faculty members, more than 100 were present at the meeting.
"That is huge attendance for a late-spring faculty meeting," he said, noting that this type of meeting would normally draw only about 30 professors.
"I was a little surprised," DeTurck said about the essentially unanimous decision, adding that he believes it to be a product of efforts to engage faculty in creating the curriculum.
Although the proposed curriculum was debated for about an hour, no significant changes were made to it. There were some "friendly amendments," DeTurck said, but those mainly involved the wording of specific parts of the proposal.
Heading into the meeting, the most controversial issue on the table was the cultural analysis requirement.
With the implementation of the new curriculum, cultural analysis will be treated as a "skills and methods requirement," much like the writing, language and quantitative data analysis requirements.
Sociology Department Chairman Paul Allison introduced a proposal to remove the cultural analysis requirement at the meeting.
"It was stuck into the 'skills and methods' component, which makes no sense at all. I do not believe that there is any special method of cultural analysis, certainly not one that would be taught in the proposed courses," he said.
The proposal was defeated by a ratio of approximately 2-to-1.
Allison, who was disappointed by his proposal's defeat, said that he was concerned that the addition of the cultural analysis requirement would undermine what is supposed to be one of the new curriculum's main goals: to have fewer requirements.
DeTurck has said, though, that the cultural analysis courses will have great value for students, as they will allow students to "get inside at least one other culture" and "impact the way [they] see the world."
There was also some question as to whether the requirement should focus on American or global cultures. To resolve this uncertainty, as well as others, the faculty have directed the Committee on Undergraduate Education to revisit the cultural analysis requirement in the fall to -- in the words of DeTurck -- "sharpen its definition."
Also up for discussion were the exact definitions of the various sectors. A sector requirement committee will therefore be formed to determine what classes fulfill which requirements.
For this reason, Student Committee on Undergraduate Education Chairwoman Farrah Freis stressed that the curriculum is still a "work in progress."
"The passing of a curriculum is a big deal, of course, but what really defines a curriculum [are the classes] that fulfill it," the College junior said.
Freis, who attended at the meeting, added that she has been assured that there will be seats reserved for students on the sector-requirement committee.
The new curriculum will require students to take one class in the current society, history and tradition, arts and letters, living world and physical world sectors.
Also, students would need one class in both the new interdisciplinary "humanities and social science" and "natural science and mathematics" sectors. Students could, however, opt to take two additional classes in the five previously used sectors instead.
Another feature of the new curriculum that sparked discussion is the "sunset law," under which courses will come under periodic review in order to stay in sectors.
Since one of the goals of the new curriculum is to give students greater academic freedom, part of the plan that faculty approved is to enhance the undergraduate advising system.
Part of this effort will be something called the academic blog.
Before registering for classes each semester, students will be required to write a few paragraphs about their academic goals for their advisers to read in the Web log.
DeTurck said he believes the blog will make both students and advisers more prepared for their meetings with each other, thus making their time spent together more valuable.
Overall, DeTurck said, "I'm definitely happy about how things have gone."
"We have something to be proud of," he said. "We now have a mandate from the faculty."
