Non-Honors Tutorial Revisions

When the CEP's revision of the Honors program was accepted last spring, it was clearly felt that offering more independent work and a stronger program would attract more of the University's undergraduates into Honors. While there is every reason to hope that this expectation is justified, the Faculty must not fail to recognize that many capable students still choose non-Honors programs and that their education should involve something more than attending lectures.

The fact that a few students want only four soft years and a degree may be a good argument against the reinstitution of non-Honors tutorial on a compulsory basis. But some provision must be made for the other non-Honors students.

There are those who are genuinely involved in their studies but unable to qualify for Honors, others who want to avoid unnecessary undergraduate specialization, and the highly intelligent group whose orientation toward activities like theatre and writing precludes the undertaking, and often the desirability, of an Honors program. Ignoring these students would imply that the University considers lectures and Lamont a sufficient education for a sizeable number of its undergraduates.

After the Brower-Finley-Perkins Committee has worked out a program for present non-Honors juniors, who were caught between the demise of the old program and the departments' inaction on the new one, both the Masters and the CEP should give a great deal of thought to a variegated, voluntary, and active program for non-Honors Juniors and Seniors. Placing the program in the Houses would help to counter the impersonality of lectures, and would provide a framework for non-Honors concentration dinners and seminars, tutorial devices which could help keep the additional number of needed tutors to a financially feasible minimum.

House and non-House tutorial are not necessarily antitheses, and this is one factor which makes continued participation by the Masters in non-Honors tutorial discussion desirable. Another is the disappointing inactivity of most of the departments. Whether made in the departments or the Houses, tutorial changes should be approached in a creative manner.