More Choose Reductions In Course Load

Twenty undergraduates, the highest number in the history of the Course Reduction plan, will enter the program this spring, Harlan P. Hanson, director of Advanced Standing, revealed yesterday. The number represents an 11-student increase over the number applying for course reduction last fall.

The number this term is evenly divided between juniors and seniors, while in the fall, seniors dominated the program, six to three. The greatest number are concentrating in either History and Literature or Social Relations, seven in the former, five in the latter. Other departments represented are Biology and History, each with two students, and Biochemical Sciences, Chemistry, German, and Physics, each with one.

The course reduction program was formally instituted in 1954 as part of the Advanced Standing program. If their petitions are accepted the program exempts junior and senior Honors candidates with "distinguished records" from as many as two full courses so that they may pursue individual interests.

Courses may be replaced with expanded tutorial, graduate courses for later credit, private research, or, "time to think about more deeply present courses." Course reduction had existed before World War II, when Tutorial 99 was implemented, but interest died after the war.

Reflects Faculty Beliefs

The present revival of interest in course reduction follows recent expressions of the faculty's growing belief in the other factors of education besides formal course work. Recent statements by J. Peterson Elder, dean of the GSAS, and Kenneth B. Murdock'16, chairman of the Committee on General Education, suggested that courses and examinations be eliminated in the senior year.

Hanson interprets the present increase in the number of students in the program as evidence that "some departments are becoming more familiar with course reduction as a tool and as a regular part of the program for Honors students." In the past, most students in the program have been History and Literature concentrators.