CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – The faculty committee redesigning Harvard University’s undergraduate curriculum is now backing off a previous recommendation requiring all students to take a class dealing with religion.

The panel of professors is instead suggesting classes on “what it means to be a human being” in a revised proposal released last week. The broader category would encompass religious thought, art, literature, and philosophy, as well as evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

The current core curriculum has been criticized for focusing on narrow academic questions rather than real-world issues.

The proposals also call for a better understanding of American history and American institutions and are intended to make Harvard graduates more responsible citizens.

The debate over a revamped curriculum at Harvard has been ongoing since the 1970s. Former President Lawrence Summers, who resigned earlier this year, made reform a priority in 2001.

The original faculty proposal said students often struggle to make sense of the relationship between their religious beliefs and the secular and intellectual world and that religion is central to some of society’s most contentious debates, including evolution, stem-cell research and same-sex marriage.

The so-called “reason and faith” courses were intended to put religion in a cultural and social context.

The recommendations were changed after two months of debate within Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Alison Simmons, a philosophy professor and cochairwoman of the panel, said the changes were made because the group determined that the subject would be adequately covered by other categories.

The faculty panel is expected to release a final draft next month, then the entire arts and sciences faculty will discuss the proposals.

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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.boston.com/globe

AP-ES-12-13-06 0642EST