Arts
After more than a year of uncertainty, the Dean of Faculty Office has decided to keep the College's education department, but the department could evolve to take on a very different form.
Last spring a review committee of senior professors recommended the department either be terminated or significantly restructured to be less pre-professional and more consistent with a liberal arts philosophy.
A new committee consisting of seven professors will propose how to revamp the department's structure and curriculum.
"They have finally come to the conclusion that education is important to Dartmouth and should stay as it has for 100 years," Acting Department Chair Robert Binswanger said.
Although the senior faculty committee report has not been released, sources who have seen it said it cited internal strife as a reason to close the department down.
Last October, the department submitted a response to the report, suggesting provisions for structural and organizational change.
Students, professors and alumni have awaited the Dean of Faculty Office's word on the department's fate since that submission, but Associate Dean of Faculty George Wolford said the office was operating without a deadline.
"You can only have delays if you have a timetable, and no one ever said that we have to reach a final decision ... by December 1st or March 1st or anytime," Wolford said.