Faculty members will meet tomorrow to discuss a plan to expand the Freshman Seminar program in order to give more first-year students the opportunity for small-group instruction with Faculty members.

In a proposal sent to Faculty members on Thursday, Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen '81-'82 and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz outlined a plan that recommends boosting the number of freshman seminars.

"[Our] concern is whether freshmen are in small-group instruction experiences with Faculty," Pedersen said.

She said that although efforts to increase student-Faculty interaction over the last few years have yielded improvements within concentrations, first-years--who have not yet joined a concentration and are not enrolled in tutorials--haven't benefited.

The Pederson-Wolcowitz proposal highlights the positive experiences most students have had in their freshman seminars but suggests that relatively few first-year students have the chance to work closely with Faculty members.

"[Freshman Seminars] integrate students into the life of the faculty, mitigating the isolation many students feel during their first year here and fostering ties between students and faculty that often endure for years," the proposal reads.

This fall, about 700 first-years applied for spots in the Freshman Seminar program but the program could accommodate only 230 students. And according to Pedersen, the Freshman Seminary program has shrunk almost by half since the 1980s.

The proposal also suggests increasing Faculty involvement in the program--as of now, two thirds of the seminars are taught by lecturers rather than by Faculty members. In addition, it says the Faculty should consider granting exceptions from Core requirements--or even departmental credits--to students who take the seminars.