The New Curriculum at Wisconsin
URING the month of May, I930, the faculty of the College of Letters and Science of the University of Wisconsin, presided over by Dean Sellery, was unusually active. It met weekly, and on one memorable occasion the customary afternoon hour and a half from four-thirty to six proving insufficient, the members adjourned for the dinner hour and hastened back to their deliberations, which lasted well into the night. There was an excitement in the air which gave point to the shortest speech. The debate was at all times keen, and, while at moments it threatened to become heated as some critical point was under discussion, any anticipated rifts of opinion failed to develop. It was soon apparent that the faculty by an overwhelming majority favored the measures under consideration. By the end of May the entire body of measures had been passed by the faculty of the College of Letters and Science. Straightway and almost without debate the University faculty and the Board of Regents in turn gave their approval, and the measures became effective for the College. These measures recommended to the faculty by a special committee are embodied in what at Wisconsin has become known as the Curriculum Committee Report. They represent, in the first place, a thorough revision of the curriculum within the College of Letters and Science. Further than this, they provide means for dealing with the broad problems of education which have become most pressing at Wisconsin within the last ten years. To the presence of these problems and to the need of dealing with them, a need felt acutely by the entire faculty, the unusual interest which the Report excited may be fairly attributed, for such reports are not new at Wisconsin. In point of fact, the College of Letters and Science has long been in the habit of taking stock of itself at intervals of about ten years. The Curriculum Committee Report of I930 is merely the most recent of such reports. Before I discuss the important aspects of the Report, I feel that I should say something about the work of the Curriculum Committee, to whom was intrusted the task of studying the problems of the College, and whose recommendations were finally adopted almost without change. Here I can speak with authority, since I was a member of the Committee: