Three students were selected late last week by the Undergraduate Council of Students to serve on the recently created Task Force on Undergraduate Education.
Jason Becker '09, Fiona Heckscher '09 and Kumar Vasudevan '08 were chosen from 30 applicants during a week-long selection process that included written applications and interviews with UCS members, said Sara Damiano '08, the UCS academic and administrative affairs chair, who was in charge of selecting the committee members.
The task force was announced March 1 in a campus-wide e-mail from Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron and Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98. The committee, which will undertake a broad review of the College and its curriculum, will comprise 13 members, including 10 faculty, two of whom are also members of the University administration.
"Demands on educated people are changing," Vasudevan said of the task force's importance. "We don't need to give up our philosophy - it's just adding onto what we already have," he added.
"I don't think the discussion has ever reached the level it is at now on campus," Becker said. Professors have begun to discuss revamping concentrations they supervise, and departments have begun to recognize that the New Curriculum may have shortcomings, he added.
"Seems to me that the environment is appropriate for change right now," Becker said.
Vasudevan said his experiences as a South Asian studies concentrator pushed him to apply for the position. In a program he described as "diffuse" and lacking in strict requirements, Vasudevan found an atmosphere of academic inquiry he would like to spread across campus.
"I was frustrated with the idea that I was forced to justify every class I was taking," Vasudevan said, but he added that he now feels this process should be applied to other more restrictive majors.
Vasudevan said the curriculum should require students to think about why they take the courses they choose regardless of whether they are required for a concentration.
Becker said he is not taking his position on the task force with a single initiative or issue in mind. "I don't have some power issues that I want to push forward," he said. "I think I'm in a position where I can be appropriately critical and also appropriately defensive (on any issue)."
For Heckscher, her role on the task force is simple: "Represent the student body," she said.
"I think the New Curriculum is no longer new, and it's nice to see an acknowledgement of that and a rethinking (of the College)," Heckscher said.
Thirty students submitted written applications, including a short personal statement on why they should be the student body's representative on the committee, and half were called back to be interviewed by UCS members.
Students were chosen according to five criteria ranging from an applicant's ability to critically evaluate their work with the committee to the potential diversity they could bring to the task force, Damiano said.
The small number of students could prove a critical shortcoming for the committee, as it condenses sentiment of the undergraduate student body into the contributions of three representatives, Damiano said.
"It's very hard to have a sample of all the different concentrations," Damiano added as an example of how the committee could overlook the perspectives of different campus groups.
Adequate student representation on the committee is something Vasudevan and Becker said they would wait to evaluate, while Heckscher said she feels the number of student members is surprisingly high.
"We have more student representation on any of our curriculum committees than any of our peer schools," Heckscher said. "While I feel the more student representation the better, I'm happy that (administrators) have given (us) what they have," she added.
Though Damiano urged the new members to make their voices heard in meetings, she said she believes "the committee also needs to make an effort to engage the student body through forums or surveys or an e-mail address where students can send feedback."
