Present Nat Sci Courses Defended by Instructors

Professors in the General Education Nat. Sci. courses were unanimous yesterday in their opinion that existing Nat. Sci. courses are quite satisfactory and that no significant changes are being planned for them next year.

In the recently approved report of the Committee on Science in General Education, the Committee suggested that the goals of a science course for non-scientists were 1) communication of "a knowledge of the fundamental principles of a special science, and 2) to give the student an idea of the methods of science as they are known today."

The Committee recommended that the Nat. Sci. courses "cover fewer substantive areas than the conventional survey course," beginning "from a narrower and deeper concern with a few specific but significant topics," and suggested that courses should be set up along these lines. But Nat. Sci. professors felt that such recommendations applied to new courses rather than to the existing ones.

Commenting on her course, Nat. Sci. 9, Mrs. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Phillips Professor of Astronomy, denied "the slightest need for a change in Nat. Sci. 9," even though she "doubted" that the course meets with the recommendations of the Committee. She asserted that "no matter what the Report says, when I give a course, I give it the way I want."

Leonard K. Nash, associate professor of Chemistry, who gives Nat. Sci. 4, said that "if any sweeping changes are going to be made in the Natural Sciences, I am not going to make them. I hope, of course, to improve my course, but I will not make any changes because of recent developments," he added.

William G. Weston, professor of Cryptogamic Botany, emeritus, said that he and Edward O. Wilson, associate professor of Zoology, who teaches the other half of Nat. Sci. 8, "certainly do not plan any drastic changes." He said that "although some people seem to feel that the General Education courses are waterd-down for non-concentrators, Nat. Sci. 8 is not and will not be as long as I am around."