On December 5 the faculty took up the matter of implementation in light of this earlier discussion. President Gillis requested reports from the deans. Judith Brown, Dean of Humanities, reported that a committee headed by Walter Isle has been meeting regularly to develop a variety of interdisciplinary courses. She emphasized the need for coherent intellectual goals and content, plus the need for faculty who would volunteer to teach these courses. She rejected the idea of making teaching in this program compulsory.
Timing is critical.
Isle's committee expects to have specific proposals ready by the middle of the spring semester and courses ready by fall '96. Bob Stein, Acting Dean of Social Sciences, emphasized that it is very late in the year and scheduling has become desperately urgent for his School. Don Johnson, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Engineering, noted that the problem in the past has been mathematics prerequisites, but the new introductory-level engineering course has overcome this difficulty. No one has yet volunteered to teach the new proposed courses in natural sciences, and these cannot be ready in time for the fall of 1996. Because these issues could not be immediately resolved, decisions pertaining to the implementation of the restricted distribution requirement will be deferred until the Faculty Meeting of February 28, 1996.