Professors’ names will no longer be visible to students pre-registering for social science and civilization studies Core courses, several professors in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division told the Maroon.
This change will take effect beginning with pre-registration for autumn quarter 2026 and “reflects the need to schedule instructors and distribute seats across offerings in general education in the Social Sciences,” according to Katelyn Yoshimoto, a spokesperson for the College.
“Removing instructor names during pre-registration gives the College greater flexibility to balance enrollments across all sections and instructors, and to accommodate scheduling adjustments for both students and instructors… while maintaining appropriately sized discussion-based seminars,” Yoshimoto said.
Others with whom the Maroon spoke attributed the change to several factors, including concerns about students selecting professors with reputations for less rigorous grading policies. According to one professor, the civilization studies program in particular has expressed concerns about grade inflation, echoing concerns raised at other elite universities.
According to Yoshimoto, the new policy was produced following a “deliberative process” between the chairs and masters of the affected programs and Dean of the College Melina Hale. Yoshimoto did not address questions about grade-based motivations for the new policy.
First-year registration for the humanities Core already excludes the professors’ name. Past students’ reviews for sections taught by individual professors will still be available in a course’s review history, but students will no longer be able to factor information about specific professors into their course registration decisions for the impacted sequences.
The College will also make Inquiry, Conversation, Argument (ICA)—the Core writing program piloted this year—a prerequisite for social science Core courses beginning in academic year 2027–28. This will effectively bar first-years from taking social science sequences until their second year, as the first course of each sequence is typically offered only in autumn quarter.
“With the introduction of the new writing core requirement in the first year and the movement of [social sciences] Core into the second year of study, all College students need a [social sciences Core] assignment in their second year,” Yoshimoto wrote to the Maroon. “The College already advises first-years strongly against taking [social sciences Core] alongside [the humanities Core], and this will be built into first-year registration as of 2027-28.”
The changes to course registration align with the inaugural year for the Chicago Center for Writing and the continued expansion of the one-quarter ICA writing course. In the 2025–26 academic year, students who took the Human Being and Citizen humanities course participated in a pilot of ICA taught by new writing faculty, replacing existing two-quarter writing seminars. ICA will expand to approximately half of all humanities Core courses in the 2026–27 academic year, and all first-years and some transfer students will take ICA by the 2027–28 academic year.
The course registration system does not currently prevent first-years from registering for social science Core courses, and students are still able to pre-register for courses for which they have not met the prerequisites.
The University did not answer questions about whether or how it would accommodate students who may want to know who will teach a particular course section. Students often choose professors for reasons including teaching styles, interest in potential advising opportunities, or general affinity for the professor.
Thomas / May 18, 2026 at 1:09 am
If ICA is to be a prerequisite for Sosc starting in the 27-28 school year, how are the 50% of second years who didn’t take ICA to fulfill this prerequisite??