Every decade or two, most colleges take stock. Curricular committees are formed. Issues are debated. And, finally, after innumerable meetings and countless drafts -- ta-da! -- a report is published.

Such reports rarely attract much interest beyond the campus. Not so at Harvard University. The first comprehensive review of the curriculum at Harvard since 1978 is big news. That's partly because other colleges tend to look to the elite university as an example. There is also a certain satisfaction, which usually goes unmentioned, in discovering that people think Harvard isn't quite perfect.

The long-awaited findings of Harvard's curriculum-review committee, which were released last week, do indeed point to a need for changes, even though some experts say they are disappointed that many of the proposals are similar to those already adopted by other universities.

Perhaps the report's most significant recommendation is that the university do away with its well-known core curriculum, the set of general requirements that all undergraduates must complete, and give students more freedom in selecting their courses. The report also asserts that students don't have enough direct contact with faculty members, that they need better instruction in written and oral communication, and that humanities majors don't learn as much about science as they should.

The report suggests plenty of smaller but still significant changes, such as encouraging all students to study abroad during their time at Harvard.

The 70-page report touches on a wide range of subjects, from housing to expository writing. Naturally, not everyone likes everything it has to say, including some of the faculty members and students who helped write it. One of the criticisms is simply that it tries to say too much. "The report covers so many different topics, it's hard to see how we're going to get through all the legislation to get this done," says Gary Feldman, a physics professor who participated in the review.

Most of the proposals are not radical departures and, in some cases, are what other colleges have been doing for years. "It looks like the last several dozen -- or even hundreds -- of curricular reviews I've seen," says Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "None of them, in my experience, have made the slightest bit of difference in how students get an education."

"It's old wine in new bottles," agrees Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president of George Washington University. Still, he says, it's nice to see that Harvard endorses what many institutions already do: "It's sort of like having the head rabbi say the restaurant is kosher."

No More Core

What seems like the most controversial suggestion -- the abandonment of Harvard's well-known core curriculum -- appears to have wide support among professors and students.

The core program has long been criticized on a number of a counts. Students complain that the courses are too narrowly focused (for instance, "The Arts of Pre-Columbian America: Media and Themes") to be general-education requirements, and professors feel that the inclusion of some courses is arbitrary. "The requirements are very complicated and burdensome and the rationale was not always clear," says Martin R. West, a graduate student in government and social policy who participated in the review. "That's been a real source of frustration."

Even some of those who have helped shape the core curriculum over the years, including Benedict H. Gross, dean of Harvard College, the university's undergraduate division, agree that it is time for a change. "One thing we kept hearing from students is that the core was too restrictive," says Mr. Gross. In addition, he says, the courses have often failed to provide a good introduction to the basics of a particular subject.

The solution, as outlined in the report, is the creation of a new program called "Harvard College Courses" that would be more interdisciplinary and offer students more freedom in selecting their classes. "These courses will seek to be foundational with respect to broad areas of knowledge, to cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and to define the basis of an educated citizenry," the report says.

If that sounds vague, that's because it is. How exactly the courses would work and who would teach them remains to be decided. Still, it is a hopeful sign for those, like Harvey C. Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard, who contend that the core curriculum "doesn't have enough substance." Says Mr. Mansfield: "Now there's an attempt to represent what students should know. I think there's a great appetite among students for big questions, and I think they're trying to appeal to that."

Replacing the core curriculum with a program that is more flexible and addresses those big questions is a good idea, according to Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard's president. But it won't be easy. "I think it will be a great challenge for the faculty to breathe life into this new system," he says.

A related change is the proposed reduction in the number of courses students must take in their majors. Now some students take as many as half of their courses in one field, which prevents them from exploring other subjects, according to Mr. Gross. "We felt this was excellent training for students going on to research careers in the subject, but for most students we felt it was too intense," he says. The report proposes capping the number of courses needed to complete a major at 12 (students must complete 32 courses to graduate).

"We're moving it along the spectrum away from specialization and toward educating students more broadly," says Jeffrey Wolcowitz, associate dean of Harvard College.

Smaller Classes

Some of the more frankly critical passages in the report are on how Harvard teaches its students. "A criticism of Harvard College today is that direct, educational student-faculty contact is too limited," the report says. "That criticism is justified."

It says that many students take large lecture classes in which they have few opportunities to talk to a professor. It states that the university should be known "not only as an institution in which students can sit in lecture halls" but also as a place in which students interact with professors "in seminar and small class settings."

The need for more such interaction became very clear during the review, according to Mr. West. "We found this was something that was a general complaint and disappointment among most students," he says.

The report contains few specifics on how to foster more direct contact, other than encouraging students to take smaller classes. Still, it is important that the university has acknowledged that it falls short in this respect, says Joseph K. Green, a junior majoring in social studies and a member of the review committee. "Most students here don't interact with all these great faculty members," Mr. Green says. "Right now, it's more like faculty members as providers of education and students as consumers."

In general, Mr. Green, who has been one of the most outspoken members of the committee, wants the university to take its mission of educating undergraduates more seriously. He says there is a "lack of focus on academics" at Harvard, and he argues that professors should spend more time studying what they do in the classroom and whether it is effective. "If we can research every possible thing from Sanskrit to physics, I think we can focus on teaching, since that's supposed to be half of our mission anyway," Mr. Green says.

Among the ways Harvard would help students have more contact with professors is simply by hiring more professors, according to William C. Kirby, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, who says an announcement about how many faculty members are to be added will be made later this year. The report also suggests that the university require freshmen to take a small seminar course and for all students to take a "capstone course," which refers to a set of senior-level courses intended to make a student's college experience more cohesive and meaningful.

Back to Basics

There is also a proposal to give more attention to basic skills like oral and written communication. Now students are required to take a one-semester course in expository writing. That's not enough, according to the report. It says that the program must be connected to the rest of a student's college experience. This is usually called "writing across the curriculum," and is an approach that has already caught on at many other colleges.

But it is significant that Harvard is advocating the teaching of such basic skills, according to Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. "You have not been hearing this from the nation's most prestigious institutions," she says. "What they're calling for may lead the public to ask some questions about the curriculum in all colleges." Mr. Graff of Illinois calls the focus on writing the one good idea in the report.

Ms. Schneider also praises the decision to require students to take a foreign language in college. Now students who have completed a sufficient number of foreign-language courses in high school are exempt from the requirement. "They're saying very clearly that 'we want you to build on the skills you brought in,'" Ms. Schneider says.

Harvard wants students not only to study the languages of other countries, but also to spend time abroad during college. The report stops short of requiring undergraduates to spend a semester in another country, but it does propose that a student's transcript indicate whether he or she has participated in a study-abroad program. Members of the curriculum-review committee came close to requiring students to study abroad, but in the end decided that doing so might create financial and logistic problems for some students.

"This is a very major change for us," says Mr. Kirby. He says the proportion of Harvard students who took classes abroad was very low when compared with that of similar institutions.

While the move was generally praised, Mr. Trachtenberg, president of George Washington, couldn't help but scoff a bit. "It's not an absolutely groundbreaking idea that you should have students study abroad," he says.

Science for English Majors

Another proposal that isn't exactly new is making science classes more interdisciplinary and more relevant to nonscience majors. The report doesn't go into specifics, but instead argues that all graduates should have a basic grasp of scientific principles. "We should no more accept the proposition that some of our students are incapable of learning science than believe that other students are unable to master subjects in the humanities and social sciences," it says.

This approach would require the university to "rethink basic science," says Mr. Kirby. "It is a fact of life that science is taught for the scientists and everyone else is given an introduction to one or the other of the sciences. We really do seek to have the kind of science education that extends across the curriculum."

The report, which can be found at http://fas.harvard.edu/curriculum-review, puts it this way: "Graduates of Harvard College should be able to understand the news and expository articles in journals such as Science and Nature."

This goal, like many of the others in the report, is certainly laudable. Now comes the hard part: figuring out how to do it all. At least a year of debate will take place before a final decision is made by faculty members on any of the proposals.

"It's a long report and I expect that many people will find much that they like and some recommendations that they prefer over others," says Mr. Kirby, diplomatically. "I'm sure we will hear a great deal of feedback from our colleagues."

Piper Fogg contributed to this article.

HIGHLIGHTS OF HARVARD'S CURRICULUM PROPOSALS

For the first time since 1978, Harvard University has reviewed its undergraduate curriculum, and the committee report says that "different times call for different emphases." Here are some of the recommendations:

Encourage every student to complete an "international experience" that would include either study, research, or work abroad.

Educate all students in the sciences as well as they have traditionally been educated in the humanities and social sciences.

Replace the current core program of general-education classes with a new, as yet undefined, series of courses that would be interdisciplinary and would probably include requirements in the humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences.

Decrease the number of requirements for a "major" concentration of study and delay the choice of the major until the middle of the sophomore year. The decision is currently made in the freshman year.

Create an office to coordinate academic advising.

Establish a January term in which students are free from examinations and can study, do fieldwork or volunteer work, or pursue innovative courses.

Emphasize smaller classes for undergraduates, starting with a required, small-group seminar in the first year that is led by faculty members.

SOURCE: "A Report on the Harvard College Curricular Review"