Campus Watch

Higher ed in the headlines.

THE BOSTON GLOBE, Dec. 13 — The task force designing a revised curriculum for Harvard undergrads has dropped its plan to require all students to take a religion class. In response to criticism from some Harvard professors after the initial proposal was made in October, the task force replaced the religion component in the proposed undergrad curriculum with classes on “what it means to be a human being.”

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, Dec. 18 — DirectTV has inaugurated weekly satellite broadcasts of Mass from the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame.

The broadcasts will be aired on DirectTV’s Channel 103 at 10 a.m. Sundays (Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones).

MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY, Dec. 20 — Marquette’s College of Engineering has become the beneficiary of the most generous gift in the university’s history.

An anonymous engineering alumnus and his wife have made a gift commitment of more than $25 million.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 20 — A school board in suburban Atlanta has abandoned its fight to keep stickers in high-school science books saying evolution is “a theory, not a fact.” The Cobb County board placed the stickers inside the front cover of biology books in 2002, but a federal judge ordered their removal in 2005 saying they amount to an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. In the court settlement concluded Dec. 19, the board also agreed never to use a similar sticker or to undermine the teaching of evolution in science classes.