A Forecast of Four-Four’s Future’

As Georgetown begins its transition into a new century with a new university president, a debate that began just over 13 years ago during a previous administration still rages on campus. Initially discussed in 1987 and recently revived, the proposed 4-4 curriculum is drawing both criticism and applause from the Main Campus Academic Committee, the group studying the proposal.

The 1987 discussion may provide a forecast of how successful this recently revived proposal will turn out.

The current proposal calls for a change from a standard schedule of five three-credit courses to one with four four-credit classes each. Five university departments have been asked to analyze how the 4-4 curriculum change will affect them. So far the philosophy and German departments have responded.

Philosophy Department Chair Wayne Davis said the proposal would benefit the department and reduce class sizes.

German Chair Peter Pfeiffer disagreed, saying his department decided the proposal “was a very bad idea.”

During a similar discussion in 1987, then-Philosophy Chairman Terry Pinkard said the proposal would increase professors’ workloads.

“Our faculty would find themselves still teaching two courses, but of four credits each instead of three. It would definitely be more work,” he told The Hoya in a Nov. 18, 1988 feature on the proposal.

He also said Georgetown would be put at a disadvantage in hiring professors. “We are now building ourselves into one of the best philosophy departments in the country and hiring premiere people,” he said, referring to the demanding workload. “We couldn’t have gotten those people with [the proposed system].”

The 1987 proposal, backed by then-University Provost J. Donald Freeze, S.J., was the first time the university had looked at implementing the plan on any scale, following a 1986 curriculum overhaul similar to one that occurred during the 1997-98 academic year. In fact, a 4-4 curriculum was proposed as far back as 1972. Each time the curriculum was proposed to be modified by the MCAC, the committee recommended that the university examine the costs and benefits of a 4-4 system, never as extensively as in 1987, though.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several top universities adopted 4-4 curricula. Now, over 75 percent of the top-rated liberal arts institutions in the most recent U.S. News and World Report rankings use the system. Many well-known liberal arts schools including Bucknell, Dartmouth and Princeton, use either a 4-4 system or a 3-3-3 system. The 3-3-3 system is similar to the 4-4 curriculum, but take either three or four classes with three to four credits per course. This comes closer than the 4-4 model to the 10 classes per year students usually take under the 5-3 system now in place at Georgetown.

Other universities are looking into switching to a 4-4 curriculum, as well. The University of Richmond has devoted significant time to examining the 4-4 model and has drafted an extensive report on the advantages and drawbacks of the program. The university is considering switching, but has not yet done so. uch of its report, though, focuses on comparisons with other colleges and universities implementing the 4-4 method and other plans including trimesters or modified 5-3 plans which aim to imitate the 4-4 system.

Unlike Richmond, Georgetown has not yet focused on examining the feasibility of the program at Georgetown and is now in what officials term a “discussion stage.” To this end University Provost Dorothy Brown has invited speakers from other colleges to speak about the feasibility of the plan. Professors Barry Carpenter from Cornell University and Michael Geisler of iddlebury College spoke to Georgetown students and faculty as consultants in late October supporting a move toward the 4-4 plan. Brown has not said whether she supports the move to a new curriculum plan or not, though her predecessor, Freeze, said it was his desire to change to a 4-4 plan if faculty would approve the curriculum.

“I would favor the 4-4 system, provided it is with faculty consensus,” Freeze told The Hoya in 1988. “The only danger of the 4-4 approach would be if the professor did not rethink the course.” He said it would be the professor’s responsibility to make a given course more in-depth in order to take advantage of the 4-4 benefits.

Faculty have had mixed reviews about the 4-4 curriculum since it was first discussed in 1987. Major concerns have surrounded the School of Foreign Service’s rigid curricula, the McDonough School of Business’s accreditation and, in particular, the workload such a change would place on faculty and students.

The SFS and MSB have never issued official statements on the proposed 4-4 plan, but when the plan was offered in 1987, then-Assistant SFS Dean Putnam Ebinger said she did not favor the system.

“In my own opinion, to cut the undergraduate program down by eight courses may, for the SFS, actually reduce the educational breadth of the school,” Ebinger said. She added that for the graduate program a 4-4 system would work well, but not for the undergraduate program.

Similarly then-Assistant Dean Anne-Marie Kapusta said the 4-4 program would weaken the business school’s liberal arts base, something which makes Georgetown’s business program unique from most other business schools. “It is what sets our business school apart,” she said, adding that with a 4-4 curriculum the school could lose its accreditation because of a reduced course load. “There are two questions – will the students get the same high quality education if the students take eight fewer courses? Would they get a full range of exposure in different areas?”

Indeed, the proposal has raised many more questions than it has answered, but without an official study or report the questions cannot be easily adressed. At Richmond, even the report on the 4-4 program has raised questions concerning class requirements, GPA, provisions for students who fail core courses, Advanced Placement credit, transfer credit, double majors and the impact on faculty in large and small departments.

Discussion has emphasized revolutionary change in university curricula, but has paid little attention to partial applications of the program or even a modification of the 5-3 system which other universities utilize to create a 4-4 like curriculum without such complete change.

“For a relatively small private liberal arts college, we should be a little more flexible than just a formula like 4-4 and 5-3,” said then-chemistry chair Joseph Early during the 1987-88 discussion of the 4-4 proposal.

Freeze also said that the 4-4 system may not be a “blanket” program that would cover all university programs, but that it might be applied to one program which would benefit and not to those that would see detrimental. All possibilities must be examined, Freeze said.

It remains to be seen whether the recent revival of the 4-4 system will be long lived or more successful than the attempt in the 1980s, but the university will obviously face the same problems with 4-4 plan’s implementation that they did just over 13 years ago.