The faculty accepted the addition of a new major, which was proposed by the Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies. Titled "Environmental Policy and Development," the major is designed to focus on the interaction between the environment and the economy. The new major will offer an education from both the technical and policy perspectives on environmental issues. The SS department stated clearly that the distribution requirements of the new major will allow students to select courses from WPI's already existing set of course offerings. In addition, the Department of Social Sciences is going to arrange some of the existing courses in a new, more appropriate, way to satisfy the needs of this major.
Changes in the Computer Science curriculum involve the creation of a new course, CS 3133, titled Foundations of Computer Science along with the elimination of CS 3021, File Structures, since its role has been taken by CS 2223, Algorithms. Courses CS 4121, Finite Automata, and CS 4534, Programming Language Translation: Semantics, were approved to be deleted as well. The newly created course will introduce the theoretical foundations of computer science. It is designed to serve as the basis for a more complete understanding of and proficiency in computer science. Among the topics in this course, students will find computational models, formal languages, and parsing, as well as an introduction to computability and complexity theory. The requirements will apply to students entering WPI in the fall of 1996 and later. Because of the changes, the faculty proposed a rearrangement of the CS degree distribution requirements.
Faculty decision in the area of Civil Engineering consisted of changes to a large number of undergraduate courses. The elimination of 12 cat. I courses and addition of 11 (9 cat. I and 2 cat. II) courses was approved. Among the new courses there is CE 1030, Fundamentals of Computer and Civil Engineering, that was taught three times during the 1993-94 academic year, on an experimental basis. The Civil Engineering Department believes that addition of this course, along with 10 others will be a significant enhancement to the education of the undergraduate students in the specialty. Modifications to some course titles and descriptions were made. The descriptions of the new courses, as well as changes in a number of remaining descriptions for courses will be included in the catalog as soon as these changes take place.