Malkiel and USG weigh new writing requirement

Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel at a USG meeting last night proposed requiring that all freshmen — beginning with the Class of 2005 — take a writing-intensive seminar, increasing the number of classes required for A.B. students to graduate by one to 31.

The mandatory writing seminars — which will comprise 12 students and likely meet for 80 minutes twice per week — would focus on teaching freshmen to write through peer review, practice in revision and one-on-one discussions between students and instructors, Malkiel said.

"You go over line-by-line, what it is you've done and how you can improve your writing," Malkiel said of freshman-professor meetings.

Each seminar would be structured around a topic chosen by the instructor but would not investigate the subject matter to the extent of regular courses, Malkiel said.

Unlike current writing-requirement courses, the seminars would not count toward other distribution requirements. Professors could continue to teach current writing-requirement courses, but those courses would no longer fulfill the revamped requirement.

Instructors from outside the University would be recruited to teach the approximately 100 writing seminars if an insufficient number of faculty, academically qualified administrators and postdoctoral students opt to teach the seminars.

B.S.E freshmen would be required to enroll in a writing seminar, which would not count toward their humanities and social science requirements. The number of courses required for a B.S.E degree would remain fixed at 36.

Malkiel said increasing the number of required courses would not overburden A.B. students. "Every B.S.E. student takes nine courses every year so the notion that A.B. students could do it one year seems a good bet," she said.

USG academics chair Jeff Gelfand '01 agreed, saying that creating the writing requirement without increasing the number of classes required for graduation would decrease elective classes.

"In [the course of study] committee, we voiced our concern about their proposed increase to 31 courses from 30, but we also considered the effect of constricting student schedules with too many requirements," Gelfand said.

In an interview after the meeting, Malkiel also affirmed that adding another requirement would not unduly restrict students' freedom to create their own academic program. "We operate an institution in which we possess a set of general educational requirements and we're not a place that takes the view that anything you want to study is fine with us," she said.

The USG warmly received the proposal, on which the faculty will have final say during a vote early next month. "I do think it will be a challenge for some students, but I think the gain we're going to get from a top-notch writing program will far outweigh them," Gelfand said.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

USG president PJ Kim '01 agreed. "It's a good idea because according to their own evaluations and feedback from students, the writing program isn't doing its job of teaching writing," he said.