Faculty Meets To Settle Degree Issue Tomorrow

Among the evidence to be presented to the Faculty tomorrow by its Committee on Educational Policy for what may be the last battle in the A.B.S.B. degree controversy will be a Student Council report recommending "one, common degree" for all who are graduated from the College.

Based on a poll of undergraduates taken November 15 and Council committee's own investigations, the report was submitted to Dean Hanford last Tuesday and by him to the Faculty committee for discussion the following day.

The Educational Policy committee's proposed recommendations to tomorrow's Faculty meeting have not been released, but Dean Hanford, in a letter to Levin H. Campbell, 3rd '48, president of the Student Council, promised that he would "have copies of the report on hand" and would "summarize the conclusions for the Faculty."

Council Backs Single A.B.

Concluding its report and recommendations, the Council committee felt that, "in a College which is moving to develop a program of a common area of learning for all, there should be one, common degree." It had previously specified the A.B. as the logical choice of title.

About the ancient languages requirement for the A.B. which would be dropped if the motion before the Faculty passes, the report reads: "For a College whose policy has been to attract men from all types . . . of backgrounds, we approve of the Committee on Admission's present emphasis on 'quantity of work' in school in a 'well-rounded adapted to the ability of the individual.'

"We believe that specific requirements should be restricted to specific courses of study in college and we would regret to see a more rigid yardstick of admission applied to able students of diverse school preparation."

Majority Prefer A.B.

In supporting the single degree the Council group pointed out that 60 percent of the student body prefers the A.B. while "practically all the rest would accept it with varying degrees of willingness.

Pointing out that the matter of degree requirements was one for "a teacher's judgement," the committee nevertheless called attention to the difficulty, and possible injustice, of requiring otherwise able students tot have had as much as three years of Latin or four of mathematics--often considered the bare min- imum."

As a possible solution, it suggested that the Committee on Admission's present "wide discretionary power" be used to encourage more strict secondary school preparation where it has become lax, at the same time admitting any student who has demonstrated his academic ability.

Council, CRIMSON Cooperated

Headed by Robert S. Sturgis '44, the Council committee included Allen L. Crouch, 3rd '47, Ronald M. Foster, Jr. '47, Caldwell Titcomb '47, and John H. Wermer '47.

The initial move for a report on student feeling on the degree distinction and the ancient language requirement came last June when Provost Buck, as chairman of the Faculty Committee on Educational Policy, asked the Council and the CRIMSON to plan a campaign to inform the student body of the issues and to submit a report for consideration at a Faculty meeting "soon after Thanksgiving."

In his letter to Campbell thanking the Council for its aid, Dean Hanford said, "Here is another example of the invaluable help given by the Council on an important phase of educational policy affecting undergraduates.