Faculty members from Cornell University and Middlebury College offered their endorsement of a proposed change in the Georgetown curriculum yesterday to an invited audience of GUSA and student academic leaders. Students offered numerous questions and critiques of the proposed change to the 4-4 Curriculum Plan from the current core curriculum.

University Provost Dorothy Brown invited Barry Carpenter of Cornell and Michael Geisler of Middlebury to share their experiences with the 4-4 Plan and allow various student representatives to voice their concerns.

“The purpose of today’s meeting was to stimulate an ongoing conversation at Georgetown about the plan so that everyone can start thinking about the implications that it will have on them,” she said.

Brown noted that the plan is still only in the early stages of discussion, and its consideration will be a “very long process.”

Carpenter, a professor in Cornell’s chemistry department, spoke highly of the plan, calling it a reasonable compromise for both students and faculty.

“It really encourages students to take the time to find courses that interest them and declare a major at the end of sophomore year,” he said.

Under Cornell’s plan, students are not required to take a fixed number of courses per semester. Their total number of credit hours, however, must be between 13 and 19 hours each semester. All exceptions must be approved in writing by the school’s deans, and according to Carpenter, these special approvals are hard to come by.

Carpenter said that classes at Cornell do not necessarily meet more times a week, but more work and attention in each course is expected of students.

Middlebury College uses a slightly altered version of the 4-4 Plan, as Geisler, a professor of German, explained. Their program has been coined the “4-1-4 Plan” because students take four courses in both the fall and spring semesters and one intensive course in January. The intensive winter term offers a close working relationship where students spend eight to 12 hours a week with one professor studying a single subject.

“Middlebury students have found that it is, in fact, easier to focus intensively even if the workload is more,” Geisler said. “They are no longer fragmented in their academic endeavors under this system and don’t have to switch gears as often.”

One of the largest benefits of the 4-1-4 Plan has been an increased interest in research opportunities at Middlebury, Geisler said.

Carpenter said that flexibility depends primarily on the major chosen by students. “Science majors have a hard time taking a lot of classes outside of their major because there is a fairly substantial bare minimum, but that’s not to say it isn’t done,” he said. “Students in the humanities, however, find the plan works very well with incorporating their interests.”

Student representatives from the Academic Councils and GUSA questioned the presenters about the plan’s effects on student life. A major concern was whether or not the plan will uphold the flexibility of Georgetown’s current system, which makes it easy for students to study abroad or declare a double major or minor.

Peter Leiman (SFS ’01), president of the SFS Academic Council, explained during his question to the panel why he believes the current curriculum forces students have to be more organized. “They must be very focused in order to be successful,” he said.

Carpenter, in response, said the 4-4 plan forces students to adopt a schedule closer to that of the real world. According to him, professors assign more work, so students will want to spend more time on that work in order to pass their classes.

In the near future, Brown said she hopes to bring students from universities who use the 4-4 Plan to continue this kind of conversation.

The 4-4 Curriculum Plan, as it is commonly known, calls for a reduction in the typical class load from five classes per semester to four, possibly worth four credits apiece instead of three.

The plan has been a recommendation discussed since 1986 and was submitted to the heads of five departments to see how its implementation would affect their current major and minor requirements and curriculum.

Two departments have returned their results. The philosophy department supported the plan, and the German department opposed the plan.

The philosophy department’s study found that shifting to a 4-4 plan with four credits awarded per course would work beneficially within the department. A curriculum that allows for smaller class sizes, especially at the introductory level, would not require the hiring of additional faculty or increased workload for professors.

Critics of the plan feel switching to a 4-4 plan would negatively impact student life, and would lead to greater pre-professionalism. The plan would also increase workload and classroom time per class.

Virtually all of Georgetown’s competitors in the Ivy League and in the Consortium of Financing Higher Education use the 4-4 curriculum.

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