Word: grads
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since the last full-scale review of the GSAS was conducted in 1969 by the Wolff Committee--who focused their attention on the size of the grad school--conditions have changed, professors and administrators say. Not only has the size of the GSAS been reduced since the reforms of the early 1970s, but even more importantly, the Wolff Committee's vision of the grad school's purpose and direction is non somewhat outdated. "The waters have been muddied in the last five-six years, and it's time now for someone to determine what the nature of the graduate school...
...Strauch Committee is expected to analyze the GSAS's role in the 1980s and 1990s, says Peter S. McKinney, Spence's acting dean of the grad school for the academic year. The major issues appear to be should the GSAS expand to meet the larger academic job market of the 1990s, and if so how much; should the GSAS prepare students solely for academic life; what structure of admissions, advising, and placement should be implemented; what balance should the GSAS draw between departmental autonomy and Byerly Hall centralization...
...grad school is a funny animal, and some people suggest that there is no graduate school that what there is is 50 departmental programs," McKinney says. "There is built in to this situation a tension between the departments, which rightfully believe themselves to be the determinants of the programs, and the central administration, which has a reponsibility to keep watch over these 50-odd programs," McKinney adds...
...least four Harvard departments have examined their grad programs in the last year and found them wanting, or at least in need of updating. The most dramatic change was in the Government Department, where a two-year student-faculty study led to a large-scale de-specialization this summer. New grad students in the department must choose among four basic fields of study--international relations, comparative government. American government, and political philosophy. "It was possible for people to take the Ph.D. in areas that were too specialized. But today they don't have the luxury of teaching in disparate fields...
...back-to-basics moves in these departments--and the reform of grad programs in the History and English Departments and elsewhere--may portend a trend. "There's a cycle to these things not unlike the cycle of general education," says Phyllis C. Keller, associate dean for academic planning. "The last round of revisions ... was in the mid to late 60s, when the size of the graduate programs reached their peak" and they could afford to specialize, Keller adds...