Although the recently approved Strategic Plan calls for restructuring the curriculum to provide a more flexible liberal arts education, little change will occur until at least September 2006. In order to facilitate the implementation of its recommendations, the Strategic Plan, which was made available to the community on Thursday, is divided into several sub-recommendations. One such recommendation pertaining to the curricular component of the plan is to “achieve greater flexibility in the total program by revising requirements.” According to Dean of Studies Margarita Curtis, this flexibility would primarily be achieved by “cutting, moving, and consolidating requirements.” Dr. Curtis continued that in order to achieve such flexibility, the Academic Council is examining the initial years of a the academic program. “We need to reconsider the rigidity of Junior and Lower year,” she said. Although the revision of requirements will primarily be focused on academic changes, Dr. Curtis also said that the council will also discuss nonacademic changes. Such nonacademic requirements include Freedom from Chemical Dependency workshops and the Lower year Life Issues program. “Perhaps what we will discover is that rather than attending multiple workshops for multiple causes, students will only need to attend a smaller number,” Dr. Curtis continued. Dr. Curtis also emphasized the possibilities of consolidation of academic requirements. “Maybe rather than requiring both an individual English and Theater class, one class could fulfill the requirements of both,” she said. All possible changes are still under consideration. “There are so many people and so many constituencies involved that we need to proceed slowly,” said Dr. Curtis. According to Dr. Curtis, the Academic Council has just begun to discuss implementation of the Strategic Plan’s recommendations. Though the council will seek the opinion of the faculty at large, Dr. Curtis said that “as far as the requirements go, most of the evaluation and assessment will take place over the upcoming summer.” This summer work will be conducted by a small task force of faculty and administration formed by the Academic Council. “The task force would be responsible to create several possible curricular models alternative to the current,” said Dr. Curtis. “In the end, these models would be narrowed down to one,” she added. Dr. Curtis estimates that as the results of the task force would not be available and therefore not discussed until September 2005. If approved, they would be implemented a year later. Despite what Dr. Curtis described as “the incremental accumulation of requirements,” she said that it was important that the school maintain the integrity of its academic program. Dr. Curtis noted that the first of the six curricular related sub-recommendations states that “[the Strategic Planning Committee] reassert[s] the primacy of the academic program and emphasize[s] the importance of protecting it.” In addition to revising the requirements, the Strategic Plan also calls to “redress uneven academic preparation before Andover through summer initiatives, complementary work, and new forms of mentoring.” “It is very possible that we could have a pre-Andover summer program which prepares less prepared students in place by the upcoming summer of 2005,” said Dr. Curtis. According to Dr. Curtis, these initiatives are aimed at “leveling the ground” between students.
