Officials get set for fall curriculum changes

This fall's College freshmen will be using a different curriculum from the upperclassmen, but officials say they are ready to handle the confusion.

Members of the Class of 2010 will follow a new curriculum, approved by the faculty last December. Differences with the current curriculum include the addition of a Cross-Cultural Analysis Requirement -- which mandates the study of foreign cultures -- and the elimination of distributional courses that fulfill sector requirements.

Anticipating confusion about which requirements are necessary for which undergraduates, College administrators have put academic safeguards into place across the University.

The trickiest task, Dean of Freshmen and Director of Academic Advising Janet Tighe said, will be training pre-major faculty advisers -- who will interact with students operating under both curricula -- and student peer advisers who help incoming freshman choose courses the summer before they arrive on campus.

The most noticeable measures now in place are the color-coding on the College's Web site -- a grey background for information about the old curriculum and yellow for the new -- and text changes in the course guides and on the University Registrar's Web site, Tighe said.

In addition, Tighe said that all literature sent to freshmen over the summer prior to advance registration was updated. Changes were also made to sections discussing the curriculum structure and the reasoning behind new requirements, such as Cross-Cultural Analysis Requirement.

College freshman Carlin Adelson -- who is undergoing training to be a peer adviser for the upcoming academic year -- said the new curriculum has frequently been a topic of discussion at training sessions.

Freshmen will choose from the same courses offered to upperclassmen, but some classes will be listed as fulfilling different sectors and interdisciplinary requirements, such as CCAR.

Two committees are responsible for deciding which courses will fulfill the new curriculum's basic sector requirements. An additional committee is picking courses for the CCAR.

Director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman said that the first two committees are "99 percent done" choosing courses and that the CCAR committee is sorting through course proposals from departments across the College.

Peterman said the CCAR committee -- made up of faculty representing six continents and a variety of academic disciplines -- received over 300 courses for consideration. Peterman added that, unlike the sector requirements, CCAR courses will be both introductory and upper-level.

School of Arts and Sciences faculty are additionally expected to weigh in on several curriculum changes at their general meeting this afternoon.

Faculty members will vote to approve several courses in a new Middle East Studies program and changes to the existing Women's Studies program.

They will also hear a presentation on a potential United States Cultural Analysis Requirement, which could require incoming College freshmen to study American minority culture. The requirement has been up for debate throughout the semester.

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