Junior Year Abroad

In view of increasing undergraduate demand for a junior year abroad, the College should now re-examine its policy on foreign study. At present, the only way anyone who has not received his Bachelor's Degree can study in a European school is to arrange a leave of absence for one year. Upon his return, he can petition for credit for work he has done, but there is no guarantee that he will receive it. Since few can afford to take the chance of wasting a full year, student are virtually forced to wait until after graduation, or to give up the idea of foreign study altogether.

Dean Bender has stated that the Administration hesitates to give credit for foreign study because there are no safeguards to insure that a man will take his work seriously. Many European universities have a loosely-knit system under which the student needs only to take a cursory examination at the end of the school year to receive full credit for courses he has hardly bothered to attend. The College, says the Dean, cannot take the chance that one of the four years spent in preparation for the degree will be wasted.

A logical answer to the Administration's objection has been proposed by the Romance Languages Department. This answer is embodied in the so-called Sweet Briar Plan. Under this, qualified juniors from any recognized college in America may study in France for one year. They are under the supervision of an American professor who accompanies them, and are allowed to elect courses at any of the outstanding Paris institutions. This plan, administered by Sweet Briar College, is carried out under the auspices of a committee of the Institute of International Education composed of professors from Brown, Bryn Mawr, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and Yale. There is also a French supervisory committee of prominent educators from the Sorbonne and the University of Paris. Sixty-six men and women from Eastern colleges are in Paris working under the plan right now. Fifteen of these are from Yale. They will all receive credit for their degrees.

Recently, the entire Romance Languages Department went on record unanimously in favor of the Sweet Briar Plan. Associate Professor Francis M. Rogers, Chairman of the Department, feels that students are under adequate supervision and do at least as much work as they would in this country. He points out that awarding of credit by Harvard would be a comparatively simple matter. The French university would send the College a transcript of the student's record. If his grades were satisfactory, the College would grant credit for a full year. If they were not, credit would of course be withheld.

Surely here is a reasonable system of safeguards. In fairness to those who want to study abroad, the College should either participate in the Sweet Briar plan or set up a similar arrangement of its own.