Breaking the Code

In the last three years, the History Department at U of All People has revamped its course codes four and a half times in response to complaints that the current system was either obsolete, confusing or just annoying. Clearly some coding is necessary to distinguish between what’s required for all students and what satisfies the period distribution (almost anything).

In the wake of last semester’s color-coded system, which turned out not to show up on most computer screens, the History Department Central Course Code Committee has come up with a new system (see detached memo). Please follow these codes when advising students, and remember, if you don’t like the system, you shouldn’t have begged off the committee.

HI designates History, not to be confused, though many of you are, with the new HI or Human Individuality program started by the Psychology Department; or HIST, which used to mean History but which now merely shows that you’ve been at this institution for over a decade. Example: HI 103 stands for History 103, the Study of Historical Methods course that’s now a requirement for all incoming majors (see academic catalogue 06-07) and that we foist on adjuncts to teach.

If a course is marked as HIFM, that means it’s cross-referenced with the Film Department, as in HIFM 200, Filmed History, which is not the same as FMHI, History of Film (for some reason satisfying the pre-1800 period requirement in EN, or English). HIPI constitutes our collaboration with Political Science, though we didn’t think of the way it sounded 'til after it was too late to change. Similarly, HIPE is cross-listed with Phys Ed, though this is more a theoretical possibility than anything else.

In addition, here are some special designations:

HIRT: any course taught by Professor Richard Tuttenbaum, who should have retired a while ago. Given that Professor Tuttenbaum has been using the same textbook for years, a tattered copy of Don’t Know Much about History, no HIRT course may be repeated for credit, and in fact any HIRT course counts as only two out of the usual three credits.

HITR: History in Translation, specifically French, an idea thought up by Professor Ronald Lesoeur to get that semester abroad in Paris, but which remains untaught.

HIFI: this is a joke made by our audiophile committee member that somehow got into the minutes and was uploaded into the online listings and for some tech reason can’t be deleted but which may safely be ignored.

As for numeric designations: level 100 courses are introductory classes, level 200 courses constitute our overloaded sophomore surveys, 400 level courses are tougher than 300 level courses and therefore rarely generate sufficient student enrollment, and no one knows what 500 level courses are, since we have no graduate program in history.

As you go about your student advising this fall, please print out a copy of the new course codes and refer to them whenever the need arises. In the process, please ignore all previous codes. As Santayana never quite said, “Those who remember the past are condemned to get the codes wrong.”