Dear Harvard College Student,
I write to welcome you back to Cambridge and to update you on changes on the campus, important College news, and upcoming events.
There are new opportunities in our undergraduate academic program. Last spring the faculty approved legislation establishing the secondary field, a new curricular option allowing students to receive recognition on the transcript for focused coursework (four to six courses) in one area outside the concentration. The Educational Policy Committee will begin reviewing proposals for secondary fields from academic departments this fall. As secondary fields are approved, they will be posted at: www.secondaryfields.fas.harvard.edu.
The faculty also passed legislation last spring moving the time of concentration choice for entering freshmen to the third term, with mandated advising conversations at the end of freshman year. A general education program to replace the Core will be proposed to the faculty this fall and discussed in the months ahead. Any new program in General Education will take several years to fully implement. In the meantime, the Core will continue as the General Education component of the curriculum.
Our curricular review and renewal has stimulated great interest among our faculty in developing new courses that will serve as portals into a variety of fields in the humanities. These courses are broad in scope and interdisciplinary in design. They can be found in the new Humanities section of our Courses of Instruction.
A dozen faculty members in the physical sciences have collaborated on the development of three new courses to be offered this year, Physical Sciences 1, 2, and 3. Visit the new Physical Sciences website for information about the content of these new courses. For our future physicians, the revised booklet published by OCS outlines new science course sequences that satisfy pre-med requirements. Our Life Science faculty members are also offering six new concentration options covering a broad domain from Social and Cognitive Neurosciences to Human Evolutionary Biology and Chemical and Physical Biology (lifescience.fas.harvard.edu).
Developing undergraduate research opportunities in the sciences has also been the focus of our science faculty and my office. Two weeks ago we celebrated in Bostons Museum of Science the end of our first residential summer research program in science and engineering (PRISE) hosted by the College. This included about 120 undergraduates who spent 10 weeks living in Leverett House and doing research with a member of the Harvard faculty. If youre interested in studying science here, you might consider applying to be a PRISE Fellow next summer.
In terms of student life, the College has been moving bricks and mortar this summer, literally and figuratively, to renovate six new student spaces. In the Yard, the lower levels of Holworthy, Canaday, and Thayer have been renovated for the Harvard Foundation; BGLSTA Resource Center; two peer counseling spaces; and a prayer space for Islamic students. We also have created new programs in these buildings, including three freshmen social spaces, the Harvard College Womens Center in Canaday Hall (which will begin its operation with an Open House on September 21), and prayer space for Harvards Hindu students. In the Quad, the new Student Organizations Center at Hilles will open to students on September 18 with a grand opening scheduled for October 5. It will provide three floors of student activity space, including conference and meeting rooms; collaborative zones with workspace, computers, and copiers; a media center, music practice room and recording studio; and the new Penthouse Coffee Bar. Starting in October, Lamont Library will house a new caf for late night study sessions. In addition, renovations are ongoing in the Loker Commons, and at the start of the spring semester, we will be pleased to introduce you to a new Harvard College social space, the Cambridge Queens Head Pub.
Work on the College theatre in the shell of the old Hasty Pudding building is progressing well and the new facility will open for the 2007-2008 academic year. This will be a performance space for students, almost doubling the former building, with 272 seats in the theatre, dedicated space for classes, rehearsals and props, and office space for some of our clubs. The Hasty Pudding Theatricals will continue to perform at Zero Arrow Street, the new performance space of the American Repertory Theatre, but it will move back to the New College Theatre in fall 2007. Beyond the historic Hasty Pudding shows, we anticipate hosting over 70 student productions annually in the new theatre.
There are some other exciting projects that the College is addressing in student life and activities which include the new College Events Board and the second annual College welcome back party. On Friday, September 15th, please join other undergraduates in the Yard for Harvard Carnival, complete with food, games, music, and plenty of time to reconnect with friends. The Events Board promises a full schedule of events throughout the fall semester. We are also working on installing GPS locators in all shuttle buses for the spring term, so that when you leave an event late at night youll know just how far away the next bus is from reaching your location.
The Study Abroad and International Experience Fair will be held on Thursday, October 5, between 11 am and 3 pm in a large tent outside the Science Center. Students and faculty are invited to meet with more than 100 representatives from universities, study aboard programs, and international internship, work, and service providers. The Fair is sponsored by Harvard College Office of International Programs and the Office of Career Services.
The Office of Residential Life worked with the Committee on House and Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) to consider ways to expand dining hours for undergraduates. A short-term solution will be implemented while HUDS and the Committee fully analyze related costs for continuing and expanding current services. As of September 18, to meet the need for meals after the dining halls close, the bagged-meal system will be enhanced. Students will be able to order meals on-line until 4 am for same day pick-up at a dining hall of the student's choice between 7 am-7:30 pm. Moreover, BoardPlus will be accepted at two locations that will open this fall with extended hours: Penthouse Coffee Bar and the Lamont Library Caf.
Neighborhood Blocking was successfully implemented last spring. Students in a blocking group of up to eight freshmen could link to a two to eight-person coed or same-sex blocking group, which would be guaranteed housing in the same neighborhood. The four neighborhoods are Cabot/Currier/Pforzheimer, Adams/Lowell/Quincy, Dunster/Mather/Leverett, and Eliot/Kirkland/Winthrop.
The Advising Programs Office has created a new web site which, among other things, lists all advising contacts for each concentration. This is also the inaugural year for the Peer Advising Fellows program, which matched each incoming freshman with an upperclassman for academic, social, and residential programming purposes.
This fall, for the first time, the Class of 2010 and their advisers are a part of an electronic, on-line advising network developed through a collaborative effort between the Advising Programs Office and the FAS Registrar's Office. Using the Advising Network Portal, freshmen and their advisers can communicate with each other more easily and more effectively throughout the year. The Portal displays a student's advising network, comprised of a freshman adviser, a proctor, a Resident Dean, and a Peer Advising Fellow. Through the Portal, advisers have access to all academic information about their advisees. Each student also has access to his or her student record, course enrollment report, and placement and score report. The Portal is accessible at www.fas.harvard.edu/~advising, and Phase II will include improvements to the on-line advising records for the Classes of 2007-2009.
During the summer, the Freshman Dean's Office addressed many changes while preparing for the arrival of the Class of 2010. While responses to previous end-of-the year freshman surveys led to revisions in the party policy, programming for "Opening Days," and processing requests for rooming changes, the 2006 responses are guiding this years renovations to the common rooms in Thayer, Holworthy, and Canaday and the creation of a residential education program. Upperclass students who are involved in organizations focused on student wellness and safety, residential life, academic support, or community building are invited to consider offering programs or outreaches to first-year students in the lounge located in Canaday Hall. Contact fdofredroom@fas.harvard.edu if you are interested.
I'm looking forward to meeting directly with students in the coming year. I will continue to host regular breakfasts in University Hall. The dates will be posted on the College website, but I can tell you now that the first is scheduled for Friday, September 22, from 8:45-9:45 am. Please email my new executive assistant, Sarah Lipson (sklipson@fas.harvard.edu) if you can join me then. A number of you have taken the time to email me over the summer with comments about your experiences in the College. I appreciate these comments, and have tried to respond to all of them.
