Faculty eliminates triple majors

Author: Tom Brant

Students will no longer be able to declare triple majors, and will have to follow stricter guidelines when they declare or add new majors or minors, according to a bill passed by the faculty at their monthly meeting on April 10. The new measures will take effect next year.

The first section of the bill, introduced at March's faculty meeting by the Educational Affairs Committee (EAC), will eliminate triple majors and limit double majors to include no more than one interdisciplinary major.

The second section will move the deadline for declaring a major from the end of the fourth semester to the end of the third. Previously, students were allowed to switch majors at will.

During discussion of the proposal last month, several professors in departments that often attract students looking for a second major opposed the requirement. Associate Professor of Psychology Michelle McCauley reiterated this discontent at the April 10 meeting, claiming that smaller academic departments would be hurt by the proposal.

"From what I can tell, all the small departments that I've talked to are unhappy about this," she said.

EAC member Pete Schumer, the Baldwin professor of Mathematics & Natural Philosophy, explained the committee's rationale for introducing the fourth semester rule as an attempt to increase communication between students and their advisors before students go abroad to study.

"For many departments, once [students] go abroad we really don't see them again until their senior year," Schumer said at the March meeting. "The end of their sophomore year is really the last chance we have to talk to them in person. A lot of declaring a major is the one-on-one discussion with your advisor and we're trying to put into place as much thoughtfulness on the students and from the departments on planning ahead as much as possible."

In addition to McCauley, other faculty members present at the April 10 meeting also expressed their qualms over the proposal, including Dean of Curriculum Bob Cluss, who said that the changes to the rules for declaring majors could become too confusing for students.

"My concern is that when we tell a student they must do something by a certain point in time, what does that mean?" Cluss asked his colleagues, referring to other poorly constructed language in the College's handbook. "Sometimes it's a real deadline, but sometimes it's not. It's hard for students to negotiate through that."

Though the proposal's first two sections were passed, a third section included in the initial version was defeated, which would have required students who want to declare a minor to do so by the end of their seventh semester. Several faculty members objected to this section, including Assistant Professor of American Studies and Film & Media Culture Jason Mittell, who said that it would limit the options of students who were planning on double majoring but have course conflicts in their final semester.

"They might have two senior seminars that meet at the same time, and we've already told them that we will not reschedule [the seminars], so what we would be telling them is that you have to drop one of the majors and now you cannot even shift down to a minor even if you have the requirements," said Mittell.