Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe, along with Provost Marty Krauss and Chief Operating Officer Peter French, has begun to meet with each academic department to discuss future action on the University's integrated planning initiative. Hopefully, this is a sign that the administration has learned its lesson from last year's ill-conceived attempt at curricular reform. Although the situation looks much improved this semester, we are still worried that those lessons have not yet fully set in. Mr. Jaffe's proposals included the elimination of the linguistics major, along with the teaching of ancient Greek, the Ph.D. music program in composition, one third of the physics faculty and other cuts. Mr. Jaffe also suggested additions to the staffs of economics, East Asian studies and other areas.

Worse than the suggested cuts was that rather than engaging the community in a discussion about the University's academic vision and budgetary priorities, Mr. Jaffe made his sweeping proposals with almost no input from faculty or students.

The process actually seemed to play out in reverse: "concrete proposals ... were announced, followed by a community forum to discuss the principles of Arts and Sciences planning," wrote the faculty committee empanelled to evaluate the proposals in its highly critical report in February.

The aftermath of the proposals-finally withdrawn following the release of that committee's disapproving report and continued faculty opposition-has left the community, including this editorial board, wary about the future of curricular reform. Still, we are encouraged by the recent efforts by the administration to solicit the opinion of faculty members through meetings with professors in each academic department. These meetings, had they occurred one year ago, might have prevented the wounds made both to the academic community and to our University's reputation, which have yet to heal.

Unfortunately, Mr. Jaffe is being rather reserved when speaking about the meetings and he has yet to foster an environment in which faculty feel they can speak openly about their own ideas.

"We don't think we can walk in and just have a casual discussion" with the administration, Ann Olga Kolowski-Ostrow, the chair of the threatened classical studies department, told the Justice last week, adding that though she had proposals for her department's future, she did not want to comment on them.

It is vital that the administration foster an atmosphere of academic openness and peer review, rather than one of political maneuvering and backroom deals. And so Mr. Jaffe, along with Ms. Krauss and Mr. French, must make concrete efforts to make their operations transparent to the entire community. Not to do so is to risk a repeat of last semester's debacle, and the simplicity with which this can be accomplished makes any lack of action inexcusable.

An online bulletin board, where administrators report without exception or self-censorship on the discussions that take place in these meetings, would provide the community access to the ongoing thought processes and give it an opportunity to post comments and questions about those reports. Such a process could also provide a vaulable blueprint for live, community wide forums about the issue.

This would prevent the perception-justified or not-that the administration is operating in the dark and disregarding the will of the community. It would also foster a feeling that reforms will come only after a genuinely participatory process, rather than through one that serves only as a disingenuous means to a predetermined end. If students and faculty cannot trust that the administration is listening, any proposed curricular reforms will inevitably divide the community, dooming any changes long before they are fully considered.