To the Faculty of the School of Arts
and Sciences
From the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE)
November 1999
RECOMMENDATIONS: (as amended and adopted by SAS Faculty on
December 7, 1999)
CUE recommends that:
- Beginning in the Fall of the year 2000, approximately 200
freshmen each year for the next five years be exempted from
current general education requirements in the College of Arts and
Sciences.
- Students so exempted will satisfy the requirements of The
Pilot Curriculum, which will be implemented by the Committee on
Undergraduate Education working in concert with other College of
Arts and Sciences subcommittees and individual faculty.
- The advantages and disadvantages of the new requirements will
be carefully evaluated by the Committee on Undergraduate Education
and other appropriate College faculty committees with due regard
to the effect of scaling up the pilot on the entire range of
curricular responsibilities of the faculty.
In implementing these recommendations, it is understood
that:
- The Committee on Undergraduate Education will be required
to update the Faculty of SAS at least annually regarding the
development of the pilot curriculum. A final report on the
success of the pilot curriculum, including its benefits and
disadvantages in comparison with the standard curriculum and
the potential for extending successful elements to the entire
SAS undergraduate student body, will be required no later than
academic year 2003-2004.
- CUE will direct a thorough analysis of the challenges to
extending the pilot curriculum to the full student body
including the resources that such an extension would require
and the impact on faculty and existing programs.
- Simultaneous with the development of the pilot curriculum,
the General Requirement Committee will seek ways to make the
current General Requirement as effective as possible.
- CUE will direct appropriate committees to develop an
effective advising system for the pilot curriculum that takes
advantage of the opportunities presented by the new curriculum,
that helps students strengthen their programs and course
selection, and that enables faculty to work constructively with
students to help them refine and assess their educational goals
over their entire undergraduate career. Special attention will
be devoted to the period between admission and arrival at Penn
as well as to the challenges in adapting the advising system to
the student body as a whole.
- A decision whether to extend to all College students
successful elements of the new curriculum developed over the
course of the pilot program will be made by the SAS faculty no
later than the spring semester of 2004 for implementation in
the fall of 2005.
-