THE FACULTY'S FIRST ROUND

The Faculty found an issue so uncommonly vital at its meeting on Tuesday that two hours of debate did not satisfy it, and it adjourned for a week. Usually the Faculty meets only for formal purposes and then delegates its work to the smaller Faculty Council. But on Tuesday the full Faculty (consisting of all ranks over and including Faculty Instructors) was discussing a question which must have seemed more pressing than any that has come up in President Conant's six-year tenancy of University Hall.

The issue was whether or not the Administration was correct in the methods it used in applying a new policy of Faculty tenure, and it was further inquired if that policy itself was right. The application occurred so suddenly, during the examination period last June, that few students realized that ten assistant professors, bearers of the main load of undergraduate teaching, had been lopped off. President Conant explained at the time that he was putting into effect the recommendations for increased security of the Faculty committee on tenure, but his critics pointed out that the committee foresaw no such immediate action as was taken. Criticism ran all the way from the one that called it an ungracious act on the part of Harvard to those who had served it well for many years to that which deduced a trend toward neglect of the College in favor of the University. Strongly supporting the latter view was the Harvard chapter of Phi Beta Kappa which condemned the loss of the experienced "middle group" of teachers and tutors.

At present the Crimson is less excited, if no less concerned, about the situation in the Faculty than it was last June. It appears, although it has never been stated to the student, that a stabilized budget is making solvent administration of this university more difficult. Certainly there can be no objection by students to wise and necessary economics. But confusion is rife among them as to exactly how they are affected by supposed economics and the educational policies underlying them. Perhaps the relations between the Administration and the Faculty are not yet of immediate concern to students, and they can watch that battlefield with remote interest. But questions exist as part of their daily classroom experience which are troublesome and unanswered.