Todd, Pilbeam To Oversee Undergraduate Curriculum

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles has announced that two professors will successively fill the position of Dean of Undergraduate Education over the next four years.

William Todd, professor of Slavic languages and literatures and of comparative literature, has accepted a three-year term as of July 1997, following his sabbatical. Anthropologist David Pilbeam, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, has agreed to return to the deanship for one year starting July 1.

The professors will succeed Lawrence Buell, professor of English and American literature and language, who has held the post for the past four years. The nominations were approved recently by the Governing Boards.

"The Dean of Undergraduate Education helps to shape and improve the classroom experience of every student in the College, and is always an eclectic and committed colleague," said Knowles. "With the help of Bill Todd and David Pilbeam, the Faculty will be excellently supported and our students thoughtfully served in the coming four years."

Pilbeam and Todd will advise the FAS Dean on matters affecting the curriculum of Harvard's 6,600 undergraduates and will co-chair the Educational Policy Committee, which reviews questions of broad educational importance.

Among the issues facing Pilbeam in the coming year will be the size of class sections (discussion groups held in conjunction with lecture courses) and the instructional budget, Knowles noted.

Todd will assume the deanship "as we consider and integrate the recommendations of the Core Review Committee, and continue -- at a rather more measured pace -- our dialogues with the concentrations," the Dean wrote to colleagues.

Todd said he was drawn to the opportunity to work "on serious matters with Jeremy [Knowles] and his staff, a group I greatly admire, and to work closely with the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Christoph Wolff, on issues that involve the role of graduate students in undergraduate education."

Among the other matters he hopes to pursue are the accessibility of faculty to undergraduates and the concept of a capstone scholarly experience for seniors.

Todd will continue to teach half-time in the fields of Russian literature and comparative literature. "I never would have done this if I couldn't keep teaching," he said.

Pilbeam, who served as Dean of Undergraduate Education from 1987 to 1992, said this week that he hadn't considered returning until Knowles made the suggestion.

"I look forward with a great deal of pleasure to the deanship," he said. "I'm eager to work with Jeremy Knowles again. I think he's a splendid dean. He is very direct, he's a decent and fair person, he is clearly an effective administrator, and he cares about maintaining the critical balance between research and teaching."

Faculty members' commitment to teaching undergraduates is stronger than ever, according to Pilbeam. "The thought that goes into curricular planning and the degree of engagement of faculty in curricular issues are as high as they have ever been," he observed.

Pilbeam plans to step down as director of the Peabody Museum in July, and when his one-year deanship is over, he will have been an administrator for the past 10 years. He looks forward to devoting more time and energy to his research on human evolution.

As he nears the end of his deanship, Lawrence Buell said, "I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to work on behalf of strengthening undergraduate education at Harvard, but after four years -- one more than I'd originally intended -- I look forward to returning to full-time teaching.

"In my opinion," he continued, "there is no more important and interesting form of deanly service at Harvard than the role of 'pedagogical conscience' in the area of undergraduate education."