To the Editor:
There has been an assertion that the paper Course Announcement Bulletin is superfluous and replaceable by an online system ("U. to phase out course catalog," March 1). Justifications seem to include a concern for conservation regarding paper waste. Frankly, this rings tinny — compare with other debatable expenses, and one wonders. After all, many copies of the glossy and great Brown Alumni Magazine end up in recycling bins, too. Another point is about up-to-the-minute information lacking in the static paper bulletin. Both are points that have some merit but do not carry the day.
I believe that the Brown curriculum can be viewed as a delightful menu, with annually changing "specials" along with standard but welcome fare. Diners — students! — need to see this menu, displayed logically and categorically and with appealing, legible graphics, in order to consider from the full range of possibilities. This means of providing information is foundational to good choices, along with good sense and perhaps solid advice from others with "taste." Sure, the online Banner system has the information, but as with digital clocks, it is displayed in individual nuggets and in a starkly unappealing fashion. If we know we are seeking a sirloin steak, we can search for it and probably find it. But what of the other tasty options that are invisible in this sterile electronic system?
A course book is the global positioning system to our garden of curricular riches. Invitingly and historically decorated by (Professor Emeritus of Art Walter Feldman's) art prints, it is a true "page turner." I'm a double alum, long term dean, adviser, faculty member at Brown and veteran of the New Curriculum that was enacted in the first year of my college class in 1970. I cannot conceive of working out course choices and arrangements other than by this book. Despite whether other institutions have adopted this, or whether some opine that students trash these books, I believe that the paper Course Announcement Bulletin is a right for all who wish for it and not an item to be purchased for an extra fee by tuition-paying students.
Fine, go electronic for all manner of paper trail processes such as concentration declarations. I still and will write all over pads with and for students, working out the details like a big and changeable puzzle. But our minds are still programmed in the analog fashion at many levels. To legislate the digital approach to our course menu seems a heavy-handed and probably misguided approach. Good, clear information is at the core of good academic — any, really — decision-making. It is oxygen.
Save the old-fashioned but excellent paper Course Announcement Bulletin, and provide it gratis to all who request it! Offer the choice. Isn't that a lot of what Brown is all about?
Marjorie Thompson '74 PhD'79 P'02 P'07 P'09 P'12 P'14
Associate Dean of Biological Sciences
