Students Petition Whipple For Interstellar Tutorial

All undergraduate Astronomy concentrators have petitioned for reinstitution of a tutorial program, and the Department has generally accepted the proposal.

Asking a presumably individual tutorial to "consider some of the currently relevant problems which are not now available through undergraduate courses," the junior and nine sophomores who comprise the College's total of Astronomy majors wrote to Department Chairman Fred L. Whipple last month.

This week at a regular concentrators' dinner in Leverett House they received a reply terming their request "thoughtful, well-considered, and relevant," and asking for detailed suggestions.

The petition suggested that tutorial might provide additional preparation for general examinations, but emphasized that its chief value would lie in providing insights into specific fields which the student might later pursue.

Such specific instruction is not now generally available to the undergraduate except by taking graduate courses or Astronomy 30, a thesis course, and so is with difficulty obtained before the senior year.

Whipple's answer noted a "pecullar need for some type of tutorial in Astronomy at this time" arising from the "general rigidity of the present undergraduate schedule" because of "the number of required courses outside the area of concentration." He felt this inflexibility made Astronomy 30 a sometimes impractical way to obtain the special insights desired.