Buck Postpones Decision on Grades System Until April 1

Acceding to a formal request of the Student Council. Provost Buck has agreed to postpone until April 1 any faculty decision concerning abolition of required seven-weeks grades and the hour exam system.

Faculty consideration of the mid-term grading set-up will be pushed up to a later date in order to give a special four-man Council sub-committee sufficient time to determine student and faculty reaction to the projected abolition of the system.

Already disapproved by a close vote of the College Administrative Board, the mid-term marking system was instituted in 1943 when University Hall realized the need for keeping closer tabs on progress of men who were leaving during terms to join the armed services.

Disapproved by Board

It is on the request of Dean Bender that the Council is undertaking the project of sampling College opinion on the subject. In its investigation it will be guided by three basic questions: (1) Does the grade system perform a necessary educational function? (2) What effect on the student's work in a course does the preparation for hour exams and mid-term papers have and (3) what, if any, is the simplest, most inexpensive grading system.

Freshman Courses Unaffected

Abolition of the system, instituted in its present modified form by faculty vote in 1946, would affect all courses except those regularly open to Freshmen.

Members of the Committee are William J. Barber '46, Sherman M. Funk '50, Richard L. Hanford '49, and Warren G. Vander Maas '49.

The Council also revealed that through the efforts of its International Activities Committee, some 24 foreign students had been placed in private homes during the Christmas holidays.