Assembly LXI: The Undergraduate Curriculum at Yale
Thursday, October 24 - Saturday, October 26, 2002
Assembly Chair Marc B. Lockhart '84
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Roberts W. Brokaw III '72, '72MA (Economics)
Graduate School Alumni Delegate

The 51st Assembly's focus was a review of the undergraduate curriculum, a process also with implications for the Graduate School. All Association of Yale Alumni ("AYA") delegates had the chance to provide tangible input into the process.

The gathering also marked the first time that AYA delegates from the Graduate School automatically became members of the Graduate School Alumni Association ("GSAA") Executive Committee. The GSAA, an association independent from the AYA, has always selected the Graduate School's delegates to the AYA, but such selection did not mean that the delegates had any official role with the GSAA.

Undergraduate Curriculum

The review of the Yale College ("YC") curriculum is being undertaken when things are going well for that school, thereby allowing time for a careful analysis of what might be enhanced rather than focusing what is broken. Formal presentations on curriculum were made by YC Dean Richard Brodhead '68, '72 PhD and by Donald Brown, Professor of Economics and Director of Graduate Studies in Economics. Panel contributions were provided by selected curriculum review committee members (from at total membership of 42): Prof. Charles Bailyn '81 (Astronomy), Prof. Christine Hayes (Religious Studies), Prof. Peter Salovey '86 PhD (Psychology), Prof. Ian Shapiro '83 PhD, '87JD (Political Science), and several students.

The delegates chose their own undergraduate courses again, in an exercise that involved breakout sessions, town meeting and written submission of the classes selected. Along with a few other AYA delegates, I also had the chance to attend a luncheon with Yale Corporation member Judge Barrington Parker, Jr. '65, '69 LLB, who is on the Corporation's Education Policy Committee.

A variety of themes arose from the presentations, exercises, meetings and feedback:

• Most current students are very happy with their undergraduate experience, even compared with students at the best of the competing institutions. Somehow this advantage should be more broadly communicated to YC applicants.
• Especially given the University's expanded initiatives in science and engineering, the flow of undergraduates switching from those majors should be reduced.
• In a world increasingly reliant on quantitative skills, math and science courses need to be developed that will serve a larger proportion of the student body. Today, courses are available either for the very technically adept or for those of modest technical aptitude. A group of courses should be created that falls between the two extremes, focused perhaps in a new way on quantitative reasoning.
• To develop skills such as writing, teaching, quantitative reasoning and public speaking, there should be cross-disciplinary resource learning centers ("communities of concern") to support such skills within courses in a variety of departments. It seemed less effective to address these needs through separate, standalone classes
• Because the AYA and the curriculum committee are groups with a positive bias toward YC and its course of study (for instance, very few AYA delegates said they would have changed their major), views of those less satisfied should be sought.
  
• More cross-disciplinary YC offerings are needed not only within Arts & Sciences but also across to the professional schools.
• Prof. Brown feels there should be a requirement for two areas of undergraduate "concentration" (a term as he uses it that is more encompassing than "major"). In his model for a liberal education, Brown employs elements of what was implemented at Stanford, where he spent a number of years helping design the curriculum.
• Brown believes each year students should be required to take a course in "critical reading" or "quantitative reasoning;" at least one course in natural or social sciences; and at least one writing-intensive course.
• YC does not require minors and is very unlikely to do so.
• No consensus was reached on the foreign language requirement.
• Undergraduates should have more international exposure, perhaps through enhanced summer offerings, of the sort now starting to be sponsored by YC.
• A healthy tension exists between the self-discipline imposed by a major and a breadth of choice among courses that enhance life-long learning.
• An increasing conflict has arisen between the faculty's research and teaching agendas, which has long-term implications for the quality of the YC experience. Some participants suggested segmenting a group of faculty that teach and do not focus greatly on research.
• For graduation, YC requires 36 courses versus of 32 at Harvard and Princeton. There is no real thought of lowering that requirement.
• A very important part of the YC education takes place outside the classroom. Interaction among students and the large number of high-quality extracurriculars very much distinguish life at the college.

Graduate School Alumni Association

Article II of the newly amended Constitution and By-Laws of the Yale GSAA states:
The purposes of the Association shall be to serve the interests and help to maintain the stature of the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, to provide a channel of mutual communication between the alumni and the Graduate School, and to provide review and counsel to the Dean regarding the direction of the Graduate School's alumni relations programs and efforts.

Now that the GSAA Executive Committee is the same as the GS delegation to the AYA, there should be benefits to GS alumni through better use of the resources of the AYA. The hope is also to broaden the reach of the GSAA and enhance relations between Yale and GS alumni.

Among the initiatives contemplated or already under way are:

• More effective communications with alumni via departmental newsletters and a revamped Yale Alumni Magazine, where the version sent to GS alumni would have GS class notes segmented by department
  
  
• High-quality "vertical" reunions (as have already been undertaken each by Economics, Engineering and Political Science).An online mentoring capability akin to the one already in place at Stanford, set for launch in late spring 2003, that would address both academic and non-academic careers for GS alumni.
  
  
• Enhanced resources for lifelong learning online through "AllLearn."
  
  
• Enhanced opportunities for GS alumni communications through university-assisted "listservs."

Officers of the GSAA are:

Chair Stephen Scher '56 BA, '66 PhD
Vice President Martin Cobern '74 PhD
Secretary Anne Briscoe '49 PhD
Treasurer William Morse '64 BA, '74 PhD

In addition, there are 12 more regular voting members of the Executive Committee drawn from Yale GS alumni; four ex-officio voting members (GS Dean; Chair of the Graduate & Professional Schools Committee, AYA; Chair of the Graduate School Assembly; and the Immediate Past Chair, GSAA Executive Committee).

Other Topics

There were sessions held on the efficient operation of Yale Clubs of differing sizes. President Levin spoke on topics of current interest to alumni. Among other things, talks with the employee unions have slowed, not over bread-and-butter issues for workers at the University, but because the union leadership wants to expand its reach to graduate students (without their being allowed to choose whether or not they want to join the union) and the medical school.