Non-Honors and Neglect

Implementation of the "new curriculum," which the Committee on Educational Policy and the Faculty approved last spring, is now well under way. Most departments in the social sciences and humanities have initiated honors junior tutorial for credit. Almost half the concentrators in the non-science areas are thus taking junior tutorial as a full course.

In order to offer the maximum tutorial benefit for honors concentrators, the departments--with the exception of English--have discontinued compulsory junior tutorial for non-honors candidates. Unfortunately, non-honors junior tutorial may disappear entirely.

For when the faculty passed the CEP proposals, it left the non-honors tutorial program up to the Houses and individual departments. Some of them, like Government and Economics, will try to arrange tutorial for a student who requests it, while the History Department has expressed an intention of coordinating an advisory program in each House for non-honors juniors. The Philosophy Department, on the other hand, claims that it does not have the manpower to offer any non-honors junior tutorial even if requested.

By their disregard of the CEP's formal but unratified non-honors proposals, many departments are doing the entire CEP program a major disservice. So far, only a handful of students in Government and Economics have asked for tutorial; perhaps next year, if not encouraged, none may request it. And, as is often pointed out, a non-honors concentrator is not necessarily an incapable, shiftless, or uninterested student. He can often benefit from tutorial instruction as much as the honors candidate.

To prevent a withering of the non-honors program, the larger departments might try reversing their present method of waiting for tutorial to be requested before offering it. As was suggested by the CEP provisions last spring, the Houses and Departments should see that at least one member of each department will organize non-honors tutorial in each House. A definite House-oriented tutorial program should be established; those uninterested would not have to attend. If departments claim they do not have enough tutors to offer non-honors instruction, then they should add personnel.

Such a voluntary, but definite program would keep junior non-honors tutorial alive and vigorous. Excessive emphasis on the split between honors and non-honors concentrators would thus be avoided, and students would be encouraged to take advantage of the best of the College's academic features.