ONE OF THE FIRST STEPS that Wessell took upon becoming president in 1953 was to call for a review of the undergraduate curriculum and degree requirements in the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Jackson which had not taken place for more than a decade. In response, Charles E. Stearns, Dean of Liberal Arts, announced plans in 1954 for a "substantial review," scheduled for the following year. He had gained the impression that the faculty had "tended to retreat into departmental isolation" in recent years and suggested that the reinforcement of a "common core" curriculum was desirable, combined with continued attention to providing for individual needs and differences. In order to provide a balance between a "generalized framework" and excessive concentration in one area or one field, the Liberal Arts and Jackson faculty set in 1955 a ceiling of fifty credits to be earned by a student in any one department. However, such piecemeal legislation did little or nothing to address the main issue.

The opportunity to review the curriculum as a whole came in 1956, with the beginning of the Tufts-Carnegie Self-Study. All five of the study committees which were concerned with some aspect of undergraduate education had agreed, either explicitly or implicitly, that such education "should provide for all students a common experience (preferably during the first two years) within the liberal tradition." But agreement ended at that point.

There were two self-study committees appointed to deal with curricular matters in particular. One, called simply "The Study Committee on the Curriculum," had as its mission an overview of all the undergraduate programs of the university, including the College of Special Studies and Engineering. However, the detailed recommendations for the curricula of the former came from the study committee appointed for that division of the university, and the College of Engineering had been engaged in its own review before the selfstudy was undertaken, and a new program had gone into effect in September 1958. As a consequence, both the general curricular

There was only one broad area of agreement between the two curriculum committees. Both were dissatisfied with the existing modified elective system, the basic framework of which had been in effect since 1940. The only significant changes in the intervening years had been the addition of more electives within some of the five sets of required courses (English, foreign language, literature, social studies, and science or mathematics).

When it came to faculty action, the curriculum committee of Liberal Arts and Jackson, through which all such recommendations had to be filtered, was faced with a difficult choice. It could follow a general philosophy of prescription or permissiveness. The Tufts-Carnegie study committee for Liberal Arts and Jackson had insisted that there were certain common areas indispensable for any liberally educated individual and that a curriculum should be designed accordingly. It had recommended a basic two-year general ("core") education for all undergraduate segments of the university (Liberal Arts and Jackson, the College of Engineering, and the Affiliated Schools), following a three-way set of divisional requirements covering the humanities, social sciences, and science. Together these core courses would amount to approximately one-third of an individual's total degree requirements. Upon completion of the general requirements, each student would take three divisional comprehensive examinations, following the passage of which a student would elect a major in a field of concentration.

One variation of this was proposed in 1957, intended to provide a common educational experience. All seniors were to take a comprehensive examination in their field of concentration before graduation. The general consensus of the faculty was that comprehensive examinations were to be limited to Honors candidates only, but several departments expressed an interest in making them a degree requirement for all students (the Departments of Chemistry, Education, Psychology, Religion, and Sociology). The Chemistry Department was the only one that actually tried the experiment (in 1958) which lasted only one year.

The Study Committee on the Curriculum, on the other hand, had felt that required courses should be held to a minimum and had recommended only two prescribed courses and a wide selection of

A motion to revise the curriculum in accordance with the Tufts-Carnegie Self-Study recommendations was tabled in 1959, and it was more than a year before the Liberal Arts and Jackson curriculum committee was ready to make its report and recommendations for faculty consideration. The committee had found its assignment difficult and arduous, and when recommendations were finally forthcoming they were far from unanimously made. A "small but vigorous" minority of the curriculum committee had prepared even a third set of proposals calling for History 1-2 as well as English 1-2 as a required course, and a full-year course in mathematics, all to be taken during the freshman year; two full years in each of the three major divisions (humanities, social science, and science); and a senior year devoted to extensive independent study. It was clear that some members of the committee were sympathetic to at least part of both sets of recommendations coming out of the self-study.

The curriculum committee presented to the faculty a set of proposals embodying a half-way house - increasing the basic requirements but retaining the existing policy of free election in specified areas, and rejecting the idea of a two-year core curriculum. The requirements were divided for the first time into two parts: "foundation" and "distribution." The committee recommended a two-part foundation requirement in language (one full year of English and one full year of a foreign language above the intermediate level), and a three-part distribution requirement: humanities, consisting of two full-year sequences (one in literature and one in history, philosophy, or religion); social science (two full-year courses in history, economics, government, or sociology); and two full-year courses in science, including mathematics. The humanities requirement had been considered originally by the self-study committee of Liberal Arts and Jackson. It was to have consisted of a new comprehensive course required of all students and was to have included not only the existing literature requirement but an Honors program as well. History 1-2 was not to be a course required of all, but was given a preferential position

The Liberal Arts and Jackson faculty struggled mightily with the recommendations of its committee in a series of five special evening meetings, in many cases lasting far into the night. At last a decision was made, in December 1960. The end-product was the adoption of all but one of the recommendations offered nine months earlier. The science/mathematics requirement was reduced from two to one full-year course. Courses in biology and physics without laboratories were made acceptable in 1968-69 in meeting the science requirement, the same year that a General Science major went into effect. All was to become effective in September 1961. Those advocating the retention of essentially the same elective curriculum already in effect, had triumphed, leaving the basic requirements virtually unaltered.

Thirty-six credits were still required for a major. The only substantive changes were the addition of a one-year course in the humanities and the strengthening of the foreign language requirement by specifying the equivalent of three years of college-level achievement instead of two. However, in order to avoid the necessity that students spend an additional year in study of some foreign languages, beginning in September 1962 intensive (double-credit) courses in French and Spanish were introduced so that the equivalent of four semesters could be completed in one year. In 1961 a five-year combined liberal arts-engineering program was introduced which attracted twelve students the first time it was offered.

A further broadening of the humanities distribution requirement was considered in 1964 when the recommendation was made that fine arts and music be added to the literature listings. Instead, the faculty added fine arts as a fourth distribution requirement in 1965-66, with a choice of one year from drama, fine arts, music, or creative writing. By then, the science/mathematics requirement could be met from courses offered in seven different departments. In short, the faculty had moved even further away from the principle of a core curriculum and broad-gauged courses designed specifically to meet distribution requirements in favor of choice from among a multitude of more or less specialized courses that already existed. As the Dean of Liberal Arts pointed out somewhat regretfully, the principle of "legislated freedom" by even freer election than heretofore

One degree requirement which had attracted less and less attention (and attendance) over the years and was abolished at the end of the 1966-67 academic year was Freshman Assembly. That increasingly unpopular form of compulsory extracurricular activity had become a secularized version of one-time compulsory chapel which had graced the academic calendar from the very day that Tufts had opened and had not become voluntary until the early 1940s. By then, it had lost most of its religious character.

Following the reduction of the normal course load each semester from five to four, the number of credits required for graduation was correspondingly reduced from 122 to 116, effective for students entering in September 1968. The great majority of students took advantage of the reduction in course load but there were some who insisted on taking more than the standard four. In 1969 the faculty voted to set an upper limit of six courses for first-semester freshmen and in 1973 required petitions from all students wishing to take more than five courses in any one semester. The minimum number of credits of "C-" or better required for graduation was raised in 1968 from two-thirds to three-fourths. Effective in September 1970 the credit system was abandoned in Liberal Arts and Jackson and a requirement of thirty-two courses was substituted. The College of Engineering had transferred to the course system in 1958, forty being required for the bachelor's degree.

An even more flexible means of meeting the traditional concentration requirements was adopted in 1968-69 and allowed students, in effect, to plan their own upperclass programs. Known officially as "Plans of Study" and unofficially as the "non-major major," it was an alternative choice to the twenty-seven areas of concentration already available in which at least six credits (two courses) had to be taken in one or more related subjects outside the major. The theory behind the Plans of Study was that a student could put together a plan which would include a combination of courses, outside reading, and

A Plan of Study subcommittee of the curriculum committee was immediately created in 1968 to review all projects. If approved, each was to be supervised by a three-person advisory committee, usually representing faculty in at least two departments or from outside the university, with one serving as chairman. Since a Plan of Study implied a program extending over a number of years, applications were expected by the end of the sophomore year or early in the junior year. A Plan of Study, ordinarily completed during the senior year, was climaxed by a thesis or some other special project which was intended to draw together the material which the student had set out to master. Plan of Study theses were eligible for the same consideration for a level of honors as those prepared in the Special Honors program.

Forty-five students applied for the program the first year, and in the early 1970s it attracted from sixty to seventy juniors each year. The range of thesis topics was predictably wide, embracing such disparate topics as "The Social Psychology of Communication," "Emerson's Theory of Beauty and Art," solar hot water systems, and Zen Buddhism. The Plan of Study "major" appealed especially to students in such interdisciplinary fields as American, Latin American and Asian Studies, Environmental Studies, and Urban Studies. However, as formal programs or departments were established in such fields, and with increased flexibility in the regular curriculum, annual applications for Plans of Study had declined to less than twenty by 1975-76.

The next alteration in the foundation requirements came in 1970, when they were divided into three parts rather than two. Besides English (College Writing) and foreign language proficiency alone, the requirement became "Foreign Language and Culture." Within this enlarged area, three options were made available: two semester courses in which a foreign language was used "as a vehicle of communication rather than an object of study"; or four semester courses in a second foreign language; or three semester courses "devoted to a study of a single culture-area not native to the student," but offered in the English language. As might have been expected, the third option was the most popular with students, for they could in this way avoid continuing or starting the study of a foreign language. To critics of this arrangement, this part of the foundation requirement became "an easy way out," but it did have the undeniable merit of exposing students to an area outside their own cultural

An extensive and frequently expanded list of foreign study areas (e.g., Judaic, Classic, Latin American, and Slavic) was prepared, with appropriate courses listed for each.

Physical education remained a degree requirement until 1975, although it had not been counted in computing academic averages since 1942. The two-year requirement had been reduced to one year, effective in 1969-70, in spite of the fact that 510 students had petitioned that the requirement be abolished altogether. When the requirement was eliminated completely in 1975, choices of a maximum of four out of twenty-four half-credit "skill" courses (including dance) were substituted as electives. Simultaneously, the Department of Physical Education was reorganized. Rocco ("Rocky") Carzo was appointed director of a three-way division of programs in physical education and dance, athletics, and recreation and intramurals. Interdisciplinary programs became even more widespread in the early 1970s, including a two-year program in mental health, approved by the faculty in the winter of 1974 and involving the Departments of Psychology, Child Study, and Education. Similarly, area programs cutting across several departments and disciplines were adopted, such as the Russian Studies program approved in the spring of 1975.

In spite of all the changes in detail over the years, the basic framework of the Liberal Arts and Jackson curriculum remained almost unchanged except for the division into foundation and distribution requirements that had become effective in 1961. The total curricula still represented, at least in theory, a balance between breadth and depth and a compromise between prescription and permissiveness, although it was the latter that seemed to prevail. Yet another review of the curriculum had become advisable by the early 1980s.

Considerable attention was paid in the 1960s to Honors programs for seniors and special programs for freshmen. As to the first, exceptional academic achievement had been recognized by special designations which had been introduced almost a century earlier. A Special Honors program had been adopted as early as 1877 and it had been possible to attain various levels of honors also through regular course work, beginning in 1892. Over the years, "Honorable Mention" had become cum laude and "Final (Highest) Honors" had become summa cum laude. The degree of "High Distinction (Honors)" had become magna cum laude and had first been awarded in 1909.

By the early 1950s all three levels of honors "in course" were voted by the faculty for each individual, and Special Honors, which had always been few in number, were voted by the department(s) in which the work was done. A Committee on Honors was established in 1957 to systematize rules and regulations and to make recommendations for faculty action. One of the first policy statements adopted by the faculty was that no degree of honors in course was to be awarded except by faculty vote to any candidate who had one or more failing grades on the record or had been subject to serious disciplinary action. In 1966 deans were authorized to approve appropriate honors for cum and magna without faculty action except for students on disciplinary probation. A faculty vote was always required for summa candidates because it was a university rather than a departmental honor. The minimum grade-point averages were set in 1957 at 260 in all courses, with twelve credits (four courses) of "A" in a single department for cum laude; an average of 300 in all courses, with twenty-one credits (seven courses) of "A" in a single department for magna cum laude; and 360 to be considered for summa cum laude. The minimum for each degree of honors recommended by the curriculum committee in 1957 had been 300, 330, and 370 respectively. It was voted in 1961 that a candidate for honors could not receive them by both the "in course" and Special Honors routes but in the one in which the student had earned the higher honor in case there was a difference in level. The Honors Committee was authorized in 1966 to review departmental action and to make recommendations to the faculty.

After 1968 the faculty considered raising the minimum requirements for honors in course because of the increasing incidence of an academic malady known as "grade inflation." However, it was not until 1973 that an upward readjustment was made in the minima for honors, effective with the Class of 1975. In 1972, for example, 37 percent of Liberal Arts men were on the Dean's List and 46 percent of Jackson. The minimum for cum was raised to 300, with four "A's" in an area of concentration; and to 330 for magna, with six "A's" in the area of concentration, together with the recommendation of the appropriate department(s). The criteria for summa remained unchanged, and the dual-track honors system was still in effect in the 1980s. The minimum grade-point average for magna was raised to 340, beginning in September 1977.

There had been a growing sense by the early 1960s that students were better prepared academically than their predecessors had been and that it was Tufts' responsibility to make the curriculum more

More successful were faculty-taught freshman seminars initiated in 1964 as part of the ongoing effort to make the first year of college a stimulating one. This was one of the continuing challenges faced by the Experimental College after its creation in 1964 which in 1966 built on the summer reading program by offering four pilot followup peer-led groups in the fall, each dealing with a separate topic, and for which the leaders received academic credit. It is worthy of note that this was a student-initiated program. Such groups would be graded on a "pass" basis unless they withdrew, and students would write short papers as well as keep a journal in which they recorded their academic experiences. This program introduced in the 1960s became the prototype of the highly popular "Freshman Explorations" program of a later day.

Freshmen in the late 1960s had a wealth of courses of all kinds from which to choose. They could select from twenty peer-taught seminars (graded pass/fail) in the Experimental College. They could enroll in one of nineteen seminars on almost as many topics offered by the English Department. They could participate in an orientation program in which books assigned to be read during the summer were discussed with peer-taught seminars led by upperclassmen in the fall. This innovation had been introduced in 1964. They could choose from among four new biology courses which had replaced the traditional freshman biology program. The late 1960s were indeed a period of intellectual ferment and innovation not confined to student activism and confrontation.

An optional one-year Integrated Studies Program (ISP) for freshmen was introduced in 1975-76 in an attempt to provide more coherence to the academic work of the first year. A thematic approach was used, centering around one integrative seminar interlocked with a different unifying theme each semester. This was supplemented with a series of three or four topics from which the student could choose one, and for which three or four support (related) courses were recommended, with room for one free elective. By this means the student was introduced in an interdisciplinary fashion to such broad themes as "Institutions and Individual Responsibility," using an historical approach and chaired by a member of the History

The program was not an unqualified success, partly because of problems of organization and faculty recruitment, and partly because the students seemed to prefer to enroll in the regular program. Although geared for 100 students, the number of enrollees declined to well below that figure, and the program ceased operation during 1978-79.