Credit or Loss

This spring, University Hall will hand down the following announcement: "The Dean's Office wishes to call to the attention of all students that in accordance with past policies, no credit towards the Harvard A.B. or S.B. degree will be granted for any summer work taken elsewhere than at the Harvard Summer School." This is the final word; the policy allows no exceptions.

Summer study is necessary for accelerators. For many other men, it is a valuable chance to pick up courses which they cannot otherwise fit into their programs. The present policy denies these students a summer at another college with a different outlook, and it prevents specialists from getting credit for work at schools particularly strong in their fields. To outsiders, the College's stand looks suspiciously like traditional "Harvard snobbery;" for undergraduates, it is both unjust and unnecessary.

The reason given by the Administration for this policy is a practical one--the difficulty of making sure that all work credited toward a Harvard degree is up to Harvard standards. If the College were to approve only those summer schools with acceptable standards, other institutions would feel that they were being discriminated against. To be fair, the Administration would have to keep continually informed about every summer school in the country, a task that is clearly, impossible. In the face of these difficulties, the College finds it best to grant no credit at all.

Nevertheless, the College grants transfer credit, under certain restrictions, for work done at other colleges during the regular academic year. Such a system might well be extended to include summer study. Students would apply through the College departments for permission to take specific courses for credit at other summer schools. Each department would approve only those courses which were adaptable to the individual student's program. The system would draw upon Faculty members' familiarity with the quality of instruction in their fields at other institutions, and at the same time relieve University Hall of the responsibility of giving blanket approvals to certain entire schools.

Until some such plan is adopted, the present polley will remain an unreasonable restriction on undergraduates. By extending the College's facilities to include high-grade courses at other summer schools, the potentialities of a Harvard education can be greatly increased.