Freshman Seminars: A Hunt For Intellectual Excitement

Since the two words "Freshman Program" first came into common usage around the Cambridge Community last spring, they have been the source of a considerable amount of confusion, curiosity, and controversy. Shrouded in mystery at their birth, they at once began to arouse high hopes in some Harvard circles, and deep apprehension and suspicion in others.

Late in the summer, the word "Seminar" was added to give the project a degree of concreteness, and three weeks ago a "catalogue" was sent to freshmen listing 22 proposed study groups. Entitled the "Freshman Seminar Program," the groups will include a total of 150 to 175 freshmen, who in many cases need qualify only with "enthusiasm and lively interest." Despite the fact that the program has been established well enough to present a seminar curriculum, the ideas and opinions of its organizers are still in a state of flux. Approach a dozen men leading seminar groups and a dozen different ideas can be gleaned on what should be done.

The whole business apparently began from a widespread feeling that the freshman year at Harvard is not all that it might be, at least as heretofore constituted. This feeling manifested itself in the discussions of a number of Faculty committees, and doubtless, too, in many formal exchanges. As Dean Bundy puts it, "we get an uncommonly large and peppy group of people here, and many of us have felt a continuing need to find new ways of sustaining the excitement these people have when they come to Harvard." Under the present set-up--the inference seems quite apparent, if not explicit--this excitement is not always sustained. Freshmen find themselves suddenly thrust into huge lecture-courses, and (once again in Bundy's words) "the meaning of the course is somehow lost in the taking of it...The Faculty is an exciting faculty, but it is often research-minded. The need, then, is to connect freshman excitement with faculty excitement."

Anonymous Financing

At some point last spring, a financial "angel" entered the picture, and herein lies another of the elements of mystery surrounding the Program. He has wished to remain anonymous, and so far this wish has been fulfilled. The scuttlebutt has it, however, that he is a wealthy alumnus who remembers his own freshman year with something less than enthusiasm, and who approached the Administration with a desire to improve the lot of future Harvard initiates. Quite likely, his generosity has by now been supplemented by support from other sources. At any rate, money does not seem to have been a serious obstacle at any point in the preparation of the Program.

With the funds assured, discussions about the freshman year took on a new importance and urgency. They did not however, take on a noticeably new clarity. Administrative responsibilities were assigned to the Faculty Committee on Advanced Standing; and the full Faculty, at a meeting last May 19, voted to "authorize course credit for special supervised study by Freshmen...in order to permit, under the direction of this Committee, experiments designed to intensify the intellectual experience of the freshman year." Apparently little effort was made to define further the nature of these "experiments." Doubtless one reason for this was that most professors had not yet had time to think the matter out in any very careful or systematic fashion. However, some of the people most involved will say privately that this was not the whole reason. According to them, the new Faculty-members who had begun laying definite plans for the Program decided that passage of the resolution could be best assured by avoiding discussion of specifics. It would be very hard, of course, to prove that such a strategem was ever consciously planned and carried out; but this report typifies the atmosphere of intrigue--and suspicion of intrigue--in which the Program has so far grown up.

One or two men objected strongly to authorizing such a "blank-check" kind of operation, but they were apparently argued down. The resolution was passed, with the provision that it was to apply for one year only, after which time the "experiments" would be thoroughly reviewed. Authorization to extend the Program beyond a year could come only from a new Faculty vote next May.

Sometime toward the end of the spring the word "workshop" was introduced into the discussions about the Program. It was generally used to refer to the teaching unit in which the Program experience would occur; but beyond this, no one was sure exactly what it meant. It was a word upon which different teachers were free to put different interpretations. It was an empty cauldron into which a variety of educational ideas and attitudes might be poured.

The next step ws to recruit a suitable group of workshop-leaders. Several Faculty-members volunteered at once; the others were sought out individually, and asked if they would like to participate. The Committee of Advanced Standing was (and still is) charged with the responsibility of approving all proposals for the individual workshops. Meanwhile, it delegated much of its straight administrative work to the Office of Advanced Standing. And upon this office has now devolved the job of maintaining some semblance of order amidst the welter of different, and sometimes conflicting, ideas that surround the Freshman Program Byron R. Stookey '54, Associate Director of this office, describes its work as that of "stimulating interest in this kind of undertaking, of finding people willing to do it, of talking over credit arrangements, of creating space for the workshops, of locating all problems of detail and trying to get them squared away, of doing some preliminary work in approaching students, of being a communications center."

It was the Office of Advanced Standing (always under the watchful eye of its Faculty Committee) that approached those of the Program-teachers who did not first volunteer their services. In making these overtures the Office was guided by only two considerations. It sought to get a good distribution of fields; and also to find professors whose past record and current reputation suggested that they might be especially adept in a very close kind of student-teacher situation.

Small size (for the most part, 5-10 students) is the one feature common to all of the proposed work-shops. This limit stems from a widely-held conviction that "clearly the most effective way of stimulating awareness and concern, honest scholarship and intellectual zest, is to put the student in close association with a man whose work is an affirmation of these qualities." "Close association" is the key phrase here; it is this circumstance which will, hopefully, "connect freshmen excitement with Faculty excitement." Beyond this one shared starting-point, the various roads to Mecca head off in extremely different directions.

But despite the fact that no two workshops are exactly, or even approximately, alike, they can be lumped into two general categories. The first group has as its common elements a desire to stimulate what the Advanced Standing Office has called "pre-professional specialization." The individuals in charge have generally tended to view their workshops as a kind of tutorial for freshmen. Their subject-matter will be closely related to course work, or will entail independent study for their students within the field of a particular course; the students, for the most part, will be freshmen who can show an unusual enthusiasm (the words "lively interest" are stressed time and again) and special aptitude in the field.

An example of this type of work-shop is that of Donald Menzel, professor of Astronomy, who will "supervise a research project on the growth and behavior of sunspots." Members of this technical team of about eight freshmen must have "a real interest in this field and be qualified to participate effectively as a member of a research team--either as an astronomer or as a physicist, mathematician, or writer." As an added requirement members of the workshop are expected to enroll in Astronomy 1, as well as to audit courses in related fields.

Other workshops tied to courses are offered by Raphael Demos, professor of Philosophy, in connection with Phil 1; Stephen Gilman, professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, together with Hum 7; and McGeorge Bundy, professor of Government, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, who will direct a group of from five to eight freshmen in study related to Gov 185. Walter J. Bate, professor of English, "will conduct a tutorial program for two or three freshmen with exceptional ability and interest in English literature," and William Alfred, assistant professor of English, plans an informal seminar in literature and writing for eight to ten interested freshmen.

The above are examples of what might be called the "tutorial" kind of workshop. Other examples could just as easily be drawn from the fields of anthropology, behavioral science, biology, chemistry, and history." All of these are seemingly alike in attempting to adapt to the freshman year educational procedures which are already a part of the Harvard set-up.

But quite a different approach is that of David Reisman, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences, and his associates. They tend to see the Program as an opportunity for true "experiments"--for trying something without precedent in previous Harvard experience. Their plans diverge from those of other workshop-leaders in several important particulars. In the first place, the Riesman group is resolved to draw students of varying interests and aptitudes. Their hope is to bring together (in six workshops, with a total capacity of 48 people) "the physicist and the economist, the astronomer and the humanist, the historian and the classicist." In addition to having this interdisciplinary character, the Riesman workshops will differ from the others in seeking out a variety of intelligence-levels. Whereas most of the tutorial-type workshops will be geared to "exceptional students," Riesman stresses that his group wants the average freshman, too. This difference has led to a further difference in recruiting methods. Riesman's staff has not sought out particular freshmen, but has sent a letter to all the members of '63, simply "inviting" their participation. Meanwhile, on behalf of all work-shops but Riesman's, the Office of Advanced Standing sent additional solicitations to about 175 students whose school record seems to indicate special competence in their particular field.

Riesman will act as a kind of overall supervisor for his part of the Freshman Program. The six individual workshops under his charge will, in their day-to-day activities, be directed by Mrs. Dorothy Lee, Roger Hagan, Kenneth Keniston, Edward L. Pattullo, and Mrs. Susanne Rudolph. Mrs. Lee has outlined one likely project, to which people of all interests could make distinctive contributions. This is a discussion of "field theory," of the relationship (or "transaction") between the student and the material he studies. In the course of such a discussion, the physicist could relate the special problems of work in his own field--and likewise the historian, the anthropologist the archaeologist, and so forth.

Each of the associates plans to lead one or two groups, and to concentrate initially on a particular problem interesting and important to the group; after a few weeks he will steer the group into the "core reading," then will return to re-examine the original dilemma. An important part of Riesman's program is "cross-fertilization" through weekly dinners, where students will meet other staffmen and students from other sections, as well as guest speakers, and occasional joint workshop meet-2