As the first year of the College's new curriculum winds to a close, administrators and students have varying opinions about how effective it has been.
The new curriculum, which took effect this fall for the Class of 1998, included a new set of more specific distributive, interdisciplinary and world culture requirements. Senior year, students must also complete a "culminating experience."
Acting Dean of the Faculty Karen Wetterhahn said it is "too early to tell" how well the curriculum is working because only one-quarter of Dartmouth students must follow the requirements.
But she said "preliminary indications are that things seem to be going well under the new curriculum ... No major surprises have come along this year."
Russian Professor Barry Scherr, the chair of a committee that oversees interdisciplinary courses, said "it looks like the new curriculum will work smoothly."
Under the new curriculum, students are required to take one courseabout a European, North American andnon-Western country, eight specific distributive requirements like quantitative science, international or comparative study and a science course with a laboratory, experimental or field component.
There is also an interdisciplinary requirement that requires students to take courses team-taught by professors from different departments.
Students before the Class of 1998 are required to take four courses in three separate fields -- humanities, science and social sciences -- and one non-western course.
Student Response
Dean of Freshmen Peter Goldsmith said the most common question he hears from freshmen is "Why them?"
He said students wonder why their class has experienced so much change. He said it is "not just the curriculum, but the meal plan and the new lottery system for housing."
Goldsmith said the "initial perception is that" the new curriculum is "more restrictive."
Freshmen often question why they "cannot count [Advanced Placement] credit, or pre-matriculation credits of any kind, toward the general education requirements," Goldsmith said.
Andy Smith '98, who said he does not know what he wants to major in, said he likes the new curriculum because, by having to dabble in so many different subject areas, he has opportunities to see "what's out there."
Smith said after fulfilling his general education requirements, he hopes to find out what he likes and then pursue it further.
Although Smith said he has "no background to compare it to," he thinks the new curriculum will help to create a more well-rounded student.
But David Berkowitz '98, who tabbed his class the "guinea pig Class of '98," said some of the new distributive are hard to fill, especially because they are not offered every term.
Berkowitz said although his faculty adviser was helpful, he has friends whose faculty advisers responded, "The curriculum changed?" when they were asked for advice about the new curriculum.
Denise Saunders '98 said, "In a way, it's hard for those majoring in the sciences because there are so many courses in the major in addition to the distributives."
"But other than that, I think it's a good idea," she said.
Registrar Thomas Bickel is already keeping track of how many students fulfill their requirements under the new curriculum.
According to Bickel, 692 of the 1,044 freshmen will have completed their lab requirement and 179 will have completed their interdisciplinary requirement by the end of this term.
"The numbers were higher than I thought they would be," Bickel said.
Interdisciplinary courses
When asked how the faculty feels about teaching interdisciplinary courses Wetterhahn said, "I think we have more faculty interested in teaching them than we have resources."
There is "more interest than we have funding available for," Wetterhahn said.
Goldsmith said he has "heard wonderful things about College Courses." Goldsmith said it is a chance for a "single area of study [to be] illuminated from different perspectives."
Goldsmith, an anthropology professor, said he would be interested in teaching an interdisciplinary course and said he has casually discussed teaching a course about the Harlem Renaissance with English Professor Deborah Chay.
Scherr said the College Course Steering Committee provides a mechanism for the faculty to propose interdisciplinary courses and to have them approved.
Scherr said there currently is "enough funding each year to sponsor approximately six College Courses that wouldn't otherwise be given."
He said "as years go on, hopefully, what we'd like to see happen is some of these courses that are now college courses, may become part of the regular offerings."
Since the interdisciplinary offering is in an early stage, the committee is leaving it up to faculty members to express interest in teaching a course, Scherr said.
He said the interdisciplinary courses stimulate students to be interested in things they never thought about before.
One interdisciplinary course offered in the spring of 1996 will combine physics and English: "Ways of Knowing: Physics, Literature and Feminism."
It will be taught by Physics Professor Delo Mook and English Professor Priscilla Sears.
Assessing the New Curriculum
Acting College President James Wright said in an electronic-mail message, "The new curriculum will be monitored by departments and programs as well as by the Committee on Instruction."
The COI is a faculty committee that deals with issues relating to the College's curriculum.
Scherr said the College Course Steering Committee will be watching the new curriculum more closely as the number of students under the new plan grows.
"We will be monitoring whether there are large [enrollment] changes in particular courses and whether we can attribute that to new enrollment requirements," Scherr said.
He said there already has been a noticeable increase in geography and psychology laboratory courses. He said the College will watch enrollment figures, student evaluations, syllabi and professor evaluations of courses.
Wetterhahn said she has heard no complaints from professors teaching classes with laboratories about students taking their class reluctantly, just to fulfill a requirement.
"I hope they'll take it as an opportunity to learn the scientific method as part of their broad liberal arts education," Wetterhahn said.
Goldsmith said Dartmouth's faculty "is willing to grapple with the very most basic questions about how a young person should be prepared for citizenship in 1990s."
Goldsmith also said Dartmouth students are up to the challenge of the new curriculum. He said "students could have gone to schools like Brown where students can opt to take what they please."
Paying for the New Curriculum
"The current-year cost of the new curriculum is approximately $600,000," Wright wrote. The funds are used "largely for laboratory courses and for some instructional growth," he wrote.
"By early in the next century the steady state incremental cost will be 2.5+ million," Wright wrote. "All of this is and will be paid for by specific gifts and designated endowments raised for this purpose.It is not coming out of the current operating budget."
One of the reasons the new curriculum has a higher price tag than the old is because of the need to hire new professors and offer a greater number of interdisciplinary courses.
Scherr said the College Course Steering Committee is "trying to identify source of funding within the College" for interdisciplinary courses.
Why the change?
Goldsmith said the new requirements better reflect the current state of knowledge and scholarship. He said the new curriculum is defined more by "modes of thought" than by rigidity within departments.
Goldsmith, who said similar changes are under discussion at other educational institutions -- including Princeton University -- said Dartmouth made the right decision to revise its curriculum and "in the end they'll benefit from it."
Goldsmith said he thinks the culminating experience will give students an "opportunity to sum things up in their area of concentration."
Scherr said new fields open and disappear and referred to interdisciplinary courses as "exciting" and said they are "often at the cutting edge of where knowledge is going."
"Knowledge doesn't stay in neat categories," Scherr said.
In the "Annual Report to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences" on February 24, 1992, then Dean of the Faculty Wright said, "I do not think we collectively pay sufficient attention to our common requirements."
Wright said the more-specific requirements "are more useful, I dare say, then our current guidance which says to students that there are 350 courses in the humanities, select any 4; there are 250 courses in the social sciences, select any 4; there are 200 courses in the sciences, select any 4."
Bickel said in the Spring of 1989 the Ad-Hoc Curriculum Committee, chaired by Wright, was formed with the job of examining the curriculum and suggesting any changes they thought should be made to it.
Bickel said in 1991 the committee reported on its suggested changes.
Bickel said the two major suggestions were a culminating experience in one's major during their senior year and a new set of requirements to replace the old distributions and requirement.
Bickel said after a year of discussion, the faculty approved the new curriculum in the spring of 1992.He said he had hoped it would go into effect in the fall of 1993, butit could not go into effect until enough money was secured.
