Monro Backs CEP Decision On 560 Score

Dean Monro yesterday endorsed last week's CEP decision not to change the College language requirement. Monro expressed agreement with the Committee view that most students already pass the proposed requirement on their own.

Jack M. Stein, professor of German, has been campaigning to increase the passing score on the College language test from 560 to 650 and, if possible, to require an additional course in the language. The CEP last Wednesday quickly vetoed the latter suggestion and eventually also decided not to change the 560 passing score.

Monro noted that most students reach the 650 mark before graduation, without requirements. Many students also take that extra course that Stein wanted to make compulsory, Monro added.

The CEP felt that there were some students who could not meet a higher language requirement without devoting most of their college careers to the effort. "We didn't want to have these students set the tone for the College, however," the Dean stated.

"The Committee would probably just as well abolish the requirement completely, but then it would seem that we didn't care about language training, and we would be forgetting about students who try to slip by with a minimum of work."

Math Requirement Urged

Further opposition to Stein's proposal came from science areas, whose representatives claimed that mathematics also deserves to have a basic requirement in the undergraduate curriculum.

The Harvard requirement is the lowest in the Ivy League and perhaps the lowest of any accredited college, according to Stein. At Brown, Yale, and Cornell undergraduate language requirements are the equivalent of three course years at the College.

Unlike Harvard, the three schools do not have a language requirement that can be passed before matriculation.