Freshman Year Experiments

People have been unhappy about Freshman year for at least a e, pretty violently unhappy, not just at Harvard. In order derstand current Dean's office ings about revising the Freshman dormitory system, you have to back a little way, and play his as well as philosopher of education.

, arbitrarily, ten years ago, a committee from prepis and the Ivy League turned the Blackmur report, General tion In School and College. volume summarised a whole of then--and now--current tents, and proposed to solve by abolishing the Freshman uers were not put so baldly urse. But Sophomore Standing Advanced placement, both of rose out of the report, were through the Faculty in 1954, have grown like honeysuckle on giberellin, attacked the man year by ignoring it. ertheless, things went along quietly until 1958--still of discontent, still bored men, but the Advanced Stand- office remained and administra waited and hoped.

the end of that year, Edwin H. '30, who had made millions dgets he invented after quit Harvard, approached Dean and offered to underwrite cts which would make the man year more interesting. was receptive, both because appealed to the Dean and se the Committee on Education Policy, just finished revising upperclass Honors program, ready to examine the Freshman year.

program was organized with accelerating haste. Bundy and Monro spent the early Spring prowling around listening for ideas, then gave the CEP a proposal to offer the Freshman supervised independent study--seminars. The program passed the CEP S-1, and the lone dissenter told the Faculty that he hadn't seen any clear policy that he was supposed to be voting for. Neither did the Faculty, but the measure passed.

Over the summer, a little disorganized organizing went on, applications were solicited, and David Riesman submitted a proposal that was to haunt discussions of the Freshman year: fifty members of the seminar group he was organizing would live in a single dorm (what he would do with his Cliffies never became clear) and eat their meals together, taking a core of courses together. The Advanced Standing Committee was decidedly not interested.

In operation, the Seminarians clove together so closely that elitism seemed more dangerous than the fragmentation Riesman's proposal was to have combatted. The Seminars came off well, partly be-they excited students and partly because the money was so clearly earmarked for Freshmen that objections never got very far. The cash was not available for things like more section men.

One professor explained on the floor of a Faculty meeting that he wasn't enthusiastic, but if anybody cared and thought he could teach something through seminars, he was welcome to. In this tone, the Faculty again passed the Seminars, perhaps not knowing what they were voting on, but aware that it had support.

Harvard works this way; programs, called experiments, are never killed: they either survive or die of apathy. Changes come by a kind of dialectic, not experimentation: experiments need defined goals, and aside from a lapse into Chicagoism in 1945, Harvard has never set clear goals--laissex faire runs the college.

Here, another thread enters the skein--the Program. True, anyone who had suggested in 1956 that the Program would change the Freshman year should most likely have had his head examined. But it went this way: the Program raised money for three new Houses. By 1960, one and a half were built or building, but the next one was temporarily stalled by a flap over whether Harvard could build on the MTA yards. Bundy and the Masters, convinced that $7 million would be better spent on something besides a new House, started diversionary ploys.

The first was adding room for several hundred people to existing Houses: cheaper than a tenth House, this maneuver would also mean a little less expansion. The Masters were generally ready to accept additions in return for certain kinds of slush--redecorated Common Rooms, altered suites, and the like. But the proposal had little real appeal, and fell through when it was clearly rejected as an alternate to a new House.

The next gambit was by Bundy, who was discovered proposing to spend several megabucks turning Yard dorms into House complexes with individual dining halls, common rooms, and other gadgets. He added a small bombshell when he suggested mixing Freshmen and upperclassmen in all Houses.

Several deans and professors thought it the very smallest of coincidences that the changes would cost as much as a new House, and that the work would financially preclude a Tenth House. In short, no expansion. Pusey, and possibly the Corporation were committed to a House, perhaps because the Program had explicitly promised it, perhaps they favored expansion anyway, and Bundy's proposal was shelved.

Dean Monro was now publicly interested. After offering support for putting Freshmen in Houses ("If we had Freshmen in the Houses, we wouldn't dream of taking them out") but showing a proper uncertainty ("It's a question of whether the changes are worth the cost"), he brought to light a proposal Benjamin Labaree, Senior Tutor of Winthrop House, made in Fall 1959.

Labaree proposed that the Freshman dorms be divided into administrative groups of about 250 students, with a 'senior tutor' in charge of each. He hoped to replace the law students now dominating the proctoring system with GSAS types--a suggestion that Dean Von Stade regards as impractical. The proposal would almost certainly improve Freshman advising; it would also be relatively cheap.

Labaree has suggested, and Monro mildly approves, that a pilot program next year might encompass the Greenough-Pennypacker-Hurlbut group and make use of the married tutor already resident there. Such an experiment would not tell anybody very much, but since, as Monro points out, decisions like these are usually just the result of allowing a concept to percolate, the pilot project might step up the heat.

The unsettled issue is a sort of what-next-and-why. Neither Monro nor anybody else has a very clear picture of what criteria are to be used in judging suggestions, and Monro, at least, feels that there is no hurry: next year, the year after, or the year after that, will always be in time. We already have, he says, "a perfectly adequate Freshman year."

If Monro means that Freshmen have not yet rioted seriously, and that they do not drop out in abnormally disturbing numbers, no doubt he is right. But both the Blackmur report and the Seminars reflect a deeper disquiet, born, perhaps, of the fact that Harvard has yet to apply to its Freshmen even one lesson from thirty years of House life.

In the long run, the Freshmen would probably be better off in Houses--whether alone with other Freshmen, or mixed with upperclassmen--but money makes a real difference, for despite appearances, Harvard is neither willing nor able to go off on educational spending sprees. In the meantime, Labaree's plan is probably the best available, and if it ever gets off the ground, will suggest that Harvard is interested, concerned, and willing to act--even with its own money.

, arbitrarily, ten years ago, a committee from prepis and the Ivy League turned the Blackmur report, General tion In School and College. volume summarised a whole of then--and now--current tents, and proposed to solve by abolishing the Freshman uers were not put so baldly urse. But Sophomore Standing Advanced placement, both of rose out of the report, were through the Faculty in 1954, have grown like honeysuckle on giberellin, attacked the man year by ignoring it. ertheless, things went along quietly until 1958--still of discontent, still bored men, but the Advanced Stand- office remained and administra waited and hoped.

the end of that year, Edwin H. '30, who had made millions dgets he invented after quit Harvard, approached Dean and offered to underwrite cts which would make the man year more interesting. was receptive, both because appealed to the Dean and se the Committee on Education Policy, just finished revising upperclass Honors program, ready to examine the Freshman year.

program was organized with accelerating haste. Bundy and Monro spent the early Spring prowling around listening for ideas, then gave the CEP a proposal to offer the Freshman supervised independent study--seminars. The program passed the CEP S-1, and the lone dissenter told the Faculty that he hadn't seen any clear policy that he was supposed to be voting for. Neither did the Faculty, but the measure passed.

Over the summer, a little disorganized organizing went on, applications were solicited, and David Riesman submitted a proposal that was to haunt discussions of the Freshman year: fifty members of the seminar group he was organizing would live in a single dorm (what he would do with his Cliffies never became clear) and eat their meals together, taking a core of courses together. The Advanced Standing Committee was decidedly not interested.

In operation, the Seminarians clove together so closely that elitism seemed more dangerous than the fragmentation Riesman's proposal was to have combatted. The Seminars came off well, partly be-they excited students and partly because the money was so clearly earmarked for Freshmen that objections never got very far. The cash was not available for things like more section men.

One professor explained on the floor of a Faculty meeting that he wasn't enthusiastic, but if anybody cared and thought he could teach something through seminars, he was welcome to. In this tone, the Faculty again passed the Seminars, perhaps not knowing what they were voting on, but aware that it had support.

Harvard works this way; programs, called experiments, are never killed: they either survive or die of apathy. Changes come by a kind of dialectic, not experimentation: experiments need defined goals, and aside from a lapse into Chicagoism in 1945, Harvard has never set clear goals--laissex faire runs the college.

Here, another thread enters the skein--the Program. True, anyone who had suggested in 1956 that the Program would change the Freshman year should most likely have had his head examined. But it went this way: the Program raised money for three new Houses. By 1960, one and a half were built or building, but the next one was temporarily stalled by a flap over whether Harvard could build on the MTA yards. Bundy and the Masters, convinced that $7 million would be better spent on something besides a new House, started diversionary ploys.

The first was adding room for several hundred people to existing Houses: cheaper than a tenth House, this maneuver would also mean a little less expansion. The Masters were generally ready to accept additions in return for certain kinds of slush--redecorated Common Rooms, altered suites, and the like. But the proposal had little real appeal, and fell through when it was clearly rejected as an alternate to a new House.

The next gambit was by Bundy, who was discovered proposing to spend several megabucks turning Yard dorms into House complexes with individual dining halls, common rooms, and other gadgets. He added a small bombshell when he suggested mixing Freshmen and upperclassmen in all Houses.

Several deans and professors thought it the very smallest of coincidences that the changes would cost as much as a new House, and that the work would financially preclude a Tenth House. In short, no expansion. Pusey, and possibly the Corporation were committed to a House, perhaps because the Program had explicitly promised it, perhaps they favored expansion anyway, and Bundy's proposal was shelved.

Dean Monro was now publicly interested. After offering support for putting Freshmen in Houses ("If we had Freshmen in the Houses, we wouldn't dream of taking them out") but showing a proper uncertainty ("It's a question of whether the changes are worth the cost"), he brought to light a proposal Benjamin Labaree, Senior Tutor of Winthrop House, made in Fall 1959.

Labaree proposed that the Freshman dorms be divided into administrative groups of about 250 students, with a 'senior tutor' in charge of each. He hoped to replace the law students now dominating the proctoring system with GSAS types--a suggestion that Dean Von Stade regards as impractical. The proposal would almost certainly improve Freshman advising; it would also be relatively cheap.

Labaree has suggested, and Monro mildly approves, that a pilot program next year might encompass the Greenough-Pennypacker-Hurlbut group and make use of the married tutor already resident there. Such an experiment would not tell anybody very much, but since, as Monro points out, decisions like these are usually just the result of allowing a concept to percolate, the pilot project might step up the heat.

The unsettled issue is a sort of what-next-and-why. Neither Monro nor anybody else has a very clear picture of what criteria are to be used in judging suggestions, and Monro, at least, feels that there is no hurry: next year, the year after, or the year after that, will always be in time. We already have, he says, "a perfectly adequate Freshman year."

If Monro means that Freshmen have not yet rioted seriously, and that they do not drop out in abnormally disturbing numbers, no doubt he is right. But both the Blackmur report and the Seminars reflect a deeper disquiet, born, perhaps, of the fact that Harvard has yet to apply to its Freshmen even one lesson from thirty years of House life.

In the long run, the Freshmen would probably be better off in Houses--whether alone with other Freshmen, or mixed with upperclassmen--but money makes a real difference, for despite appearances, Harvard is neither willing nor able to go off on educational spending sprees. In the meantime, Labaree's plan is probably the best available, and if it ever gets off the ground, will suggest that Harvard is interested, concerned, and willing to act--even with its own money.

the end of that year, Edwin H. '30, who had made millions dgets he invented after quit Harvard, approached Dean and offered to underwrite cts which would make the man year more interesting. was receptive, both because appealed to the Dean and se the Committee on Education Policy, just finished revising upperclass Honors program, ready to examine the Freshman year.

program was organized with accelerating haste. Bundy and Monro spent the early Spring prowling around listening for ideas, then gave the CEP a proposal to offer the Freshman supervised independent study--seminars. The program passed the CEP S-1, and the lone dissenter told the Faculty that he hadn't seen any clear policy that he was supposed to be voting for. Neither did the Faculty, but the measure passed.

Over the summer, a little disorganized organizing went on, applications were solicited, and David Riesman submitted a proposal that was to haunt discussions of the Freshman year: fifty members of the seminar group he was organizing would live in a single dorm (what he would do with his Cliffies never became clear) and eat their meals together, taking a core of courses together. The Advanced Standing Committee was decidedly not interested.

In operation, the Seminarians clove together so closely that elitism seemed more dangerous than the fragmentation Riesman's proposal was to have combatted. The Seminars came off well, partly be-they excited students and partly because the money was so clearly earmarked for Freshmen that objections never got very far. The cash was not available for things like more section men.

One professor explained on the floor of a Faculty meeting that he wasn't enthusiastic, but if anybody cared and thought he could teach something through seminars, he was welcome to. In this tone, the Faculty again passed the Seminars, perhaps not knowing what they were voting on, but aware that it had support.

Harvard works this way; programs, called experiments, are never killed: they either survive or die of apathy. Changes come by a kind of dialectic, not experimentation: experiments need defined goals, and aside from a lapse into Chicagoism in 1945, Harvard has never set clear goals--laissex faire runs the college.

Here, another thread enters the skein--the Program. True, anyone who had suggested in 1956 that the Program would change the Freshman year should most likely have had his head examined. But it went this way: the Program raised money for three new Houses. By 1960, one and a half were built or building, but the next one was temporarily stalled by a flap over whether Harvard could build on the MTA yards. Bundy and the Masters, convinced that $7 million would be better spent on something besides a new House, started diversionary ploys.

The first was adding room for several hundred people to existing Houses: cheaper than a tenth House, this maneuver would also mean a little less expansion. The Masters were generally ready to accept additions in return for certain kinds of slush--redecorated Common Rooms, altered suites, and the like. But the proposal had little real appeal, and fell through when it was clearly rejected as an alternate to a new House.

The next gambit was by Bundy, who was discovered proposing to spend several megabucks turning Yard dorms into House complexes with individual dining halls, common rooms, and other gadgets. He added a small bombshell when he suggested mixing Freshmen and upperclassmen in all Houses.

Several deans and professors thought it the very smallest of coincidences that the changes would cost as much as a new House, and that the work would financially preclude a Tenth House. In short, no expansion. Pusey, and possibly the Corporation were committed to a House, perhaps because the Program had explicitly promised it, perhaps they favored expansion anyway, and Bundy's proposal was shelved.

Dean Monro was now publicly interested. After offering support for putting Freshmen in Houses ("If we had Freshmen in the Houses, we wouldn't dream of taking them out") but showing a proper uncertainty ("It's a question of whether the changes are worth the cost"), he brought to light a proposal Benjamin Labaree, Senior Tutor of Winthrop House, made in Fall 1959.

Labaree proposed that the Freshman dorms be divided into administrative groups of about 250 students, with a 'senior tutor' in charge of each. He hoped to replace the law students now dominating the proctoring system with GSAS types--a suggestion that Dean Von Stade regards as impractical. The proposal would almost certainly improve Freshman advising; it would also be relatively cheap.

Labaree has suggested, and Monro mildly approves, that a pilot program next year might encompass the Greenough-Pennypacker-Hurlbut group and make use of the married tutor already resident there. Such an experiment would not tell anybody very much, but since, as Monro points out, decisions like these are usually just the result of allowing a concept to percolate, the pilot project might step up the heat.

The unsettled issue is a sort of what-next-and-why. Neither Monro nor anybody else has a very clear picture of what criteria are to be used in judging suggestions, and Monro, at least, feels that there is no hurry: next year, the year after, or the year after that, will always be in time. We already have, he says, "a perfectly adequate Freshman year."

If Monro means that Freshmen have not yet rioted seriously, and that they do not drop out in abnormally disturbing numbers, no doubt he is right. But both the Blackmur report and the Seminars reflect a deeper disquiet, born, perhaps, of the fact that Harvard has yet to apply to its Freshmen even one lesson from thirty years of House life.

In the long run, the Freshmen would probably be better off in Houses--whether alone with other Freshmen, or mixed with upperclassmen--but money makes a real difference, for despite appearances, Harvard is neither willing nor able to go off on educational spending sprees. In the meantime, Labaree's plan is probably the best available, and if it ever gets off the ground, will suggest that Harvard is interested, concerned, and willing to act--even with its own money.

program was organized with accelerating haste. Bundy and Monro spent the early Spring prowling around listening for ideas, then gave the CEP a proposal to offer the Freshman supervised independent study--seminars. The program passed the CEP S-1, and the lone dissenter told the Faculty that he hadn't seen any clear policy that he was supposed to be voting for. Neither did the Faculty, but the measure passed.

Over the summer, a little disorganized organizing went on, applications were solicited, and David Riesman submitted a proposal that was to haunt discussions of the Freshman year: fifty members of the seminar group he was organizing would live in a single dorm (what he would do with his Cliffies never became clear) and eat their meals together, taking a core of courses together. The Advanced Standing Committee was decidedly not interested.

In operation, the Seminarians clove together so closely that elitism seemed more dangerous than the fragmentation Riesman's proposal was to have combatted. The Seminars came off well, partly be-they excited students and partly because the money was so clearly earmarked for Freshmen that objections never got very far. The cash was not available for things like more section men.

One professor explained on the floor of a Faculty meeting that he wasn't enthusiastic, but if anybody cared and thought he could teach something through seminars, he was welcome to. In this tone, the Faculty again passed the Seminars, perhaps not knowing what they were voting on, but aware that it had support.

Harvard works this way; programs, called experiments, are never killed: they either survive or die of apathy. Changes come by a kind of dialectic, not experimentation: experiments need defined goals, and aside from a lapse into Chicagoism in 1945, Harvard has never set clear goals--laissex faire runs the college.

Here, another thread enters the skein--the Program. True, anyone who had suggested in 1956 that the Program would change the Freshman year should most likely have had his head examined. But it went this way: the Program raised money for three new Houses. By 1960, one and a half were built or building, but the next one was temporarily stalled by a flap over whether Harvard could build on the MTA yards. Bundy and the Masters, convinced that $7 million would be better spent on something besides a new House, started diversionary ploys.

The first was adding room for several hundred people to existing Houses: cheaper than a tenth House, this maneuver would also mean a little less expansion. The Masters were generally ready to accept additions in return for certain kinds of slush--redecorated Common Rooms, altered suites, and the like. But the proposal had little real appeal, and fell through when it was clearly rejected as an alternate to a new House.

The next gambit was by Bundy, who was discovered proposing to spend several megabucks turning Yard dorms into House complexes with individual dining halls, common rooms, and other gadgets. He added a small bombshell when he suggested mixing Freshmen and upperclassmen in all Houses.

Several deans and professors thought it the very smallest of coincidences that the changes would cost as much as a new House, and that the work would financially preclude a Tenth House. In short, no expansion. Pusey, and possibly the Corporation were committed to a House, perhaps because the Program had explicitly promised it, perhaps they favored expansion anyway, and Bundy's proposal was shelved.

Dean Monro was now publicly interested. After offering support for putting Freshmen in Houses ("If we had Freshmen in the Houses, we wouldn't dream of taking them out") but showing a proper uncertainty ("It's a question of whether the changes are worth the cost"), he brought to light a proposal Benjamin Labaree, Senior Tutor of Winthrop House, made in Fall 1959.

Labaree proposed that the Freshman dorms be divided into administrative groups of about 250 students, with a 'senior tutor' in charge of each. He hoped to replace the law students now dominating the proctoring system with GSAS types--a suggestion that Dean Von Stade regards as impractical. The proposal would almost certainly improve Freshman advising; it would also be relatively cheap.

Labaree has suggested, and Monro mildly approves, that a pilot program next year might encompass the Greenough-Pennypacker-Hurlbut group and make use of the married tutor already resident there. Such an experiment would not tell anybody very much, but since, as Monro points out, decisions like these are usually just the result of allowing a concept to percolate, the pilot project might step up the heat.

The unsettled issue is a sort of what-next-and-why. Neither Monro nor anybody else has a very clear picture of what criteria are to be used in judging suggestions, and Monro, at least, feels that there is no hurry: next year, the year after, or the year after that, will always be in time. We already have, he says, "a perfectly adequate Freshman year."

If Monro means that Freshmen have not yet rioted seriously, and that they do not drop out in abnormally disturbing numbers, no doubt he is right. But both the Blackmur report and the Seminars reflect a deeper disquiet, born, perhaps, of the fact that Harvard has yet to apply to its Freshmen even one lesson from thirty years of House life.

In the long run, the Freshmen would probably be better off in Houses--whether alone with other Freshmen, or mixed with upperclassmen--but money makes a real difference, for despite appearances, Harvard is neither willing nor able to go off on educational spending sprees. In the meantime, Labaree's plan is probably the best available, and if it ever gets off the ground, will suggest that Harvard is interested, concerned, and willing to act--even with its own money.

Over the summer, a little disorganized organizing went on, applications were solicited, and David Riesman submitted a proposal that was to haunt discussions of the Freshman year: fifty members of the seminar group he was organizing would live in a single dorm (what he would do with his Cliffies never became clear) and eat their meals together, taking a core of courses together. The Advanced Standing Committee was decidedly not interested.

In operation, the Seminarians clove together so closely that elitism seemed more dangerous than the fragmentation Riesman's proposal was to have combatted. The Seminars came off well, partly be-they excited students and partly because the money was so clearly earmarked for Freshmen that objections never got very far. The cash was not available for things like more section men.

One professor explained on the floor of a Faculty meeting that he wasn't enthusiastic, but if anybody cared and thought he could teach something through seminars, he was welcome to. In this tone, the Faculty again passed the Seminars, perhaps not knowing what they were voting on, but aware that it had support.

Harvard works this way; programs, called experiments, are never killed: they either survive or die of apathy. Changes come by a kind of dialectic, not experimentation: experiments need defined goals, and aside from a lapse into Chicagoism in 1945, Harvard has never set clear goals--laissex faire runs the college.

Here, another thread enters the skein--the Program. True, anyone who had suggested in 1956 that the Program would change the Freshman year should most likely have had his head examined. But it went this way: the Program raised money for three new Houses. By 1960, one and a half were built or building, but the next one was temporarily stalled by a flap over whether Harvard could build on the MTA yards. Bundy and the Masters, convinced that $7 million would be better spent on something besides a new House, started diversionary ploys.

The first was adding room for several hundred people to existing Houses: cheaper than a tenth House, this maneuver would also mean a little less expansion. The Masters were generally ready to accept additions in return for certain kinds of slush--redecorated Common Rooms, altered suites, and the like. But the proposal had little real appeal, and fell through when it was clearly rejected as an alternate to a new House.

The next gambit was by Bundy, who was discovered proposing to spend several megabucks turning Yard dorms into House complexes with individual dining halls, common rooms, and other gadgets. He added a small bombshell when he suggested mixing Freshmen and upperclassmen in all Houses.

Several deans and professors thought it the very smallest of coincidences that the changes would cost as much as a new House, and that the work would financially preclude a Tenth House. In short, no expansion. Pusey, and possibly the Corporation were committed to a House, perhaps because the Program had explicitly promised it, perhaps they favored expansion anyway, and Bundy's proposal was shelved.

Dean Monro was now publicly interested. After offering support for putting Freshmen in Houses ("If we had Freshmen in the Houses, we wouldn't dream of taking them out") but showing a proper uncertainty ("It's a question of whether the changes are worth the cost"), he brought to light a proposal Benjamin Labaree, Senior Tutor of Winthrop House, made in Fall 1959.

Labaree proposed that the Freshman dorms be divided into administrative groups of about 250 students, with a 'senior tutor' in charge of each. He hoped to replace the law students now dominating the proctoring system with GSAS types--a suggestion that Dean Von Stade regards as impractical. The proposal would almost certainly improve Freshman advising; it would also be relatively cheap.

Labaree has suggested, and Monro mildly approves, that a pilot program next year might encompass the Greenough-Pennypacker-Hurlbut group and make use of the married tutor already resident there. Such an experiment would not tell anybody very much, but since, as Monro points out, decisions like these are usually just the result of allowing a concept to percolate, the pilot project might step up the heat.

The unsettled issue is a sort of what-next-and-why. Neither Monro nor anybody else has a very clear picture of what criteria are to be used in judging suggestions, and Monro, at least, feels that there is no hurry: next year, the year after, or the year after that, will always be in time. We already have, he says, "a perfectly adequate Freshman year."

If Monro means that Freshmen have not yet rioted seriously, and that they do not drop out in abnormally disturbing numbers, no doubt he is right. But both the Blackmur report and the Seminars reflect a deeper disquiet, born, perhaps, of the fact that Harvard has yet to apply to its Freshmen even one lesson from thirty years of House life.

In the long run, the Freshmen would probably be better off in Houses--whether alone with other Freshmen, or mixed with upperclassmen--but money makes a real difference, for despite appearances, Harvard is neither willing nor able to go off on educational spending sprees. In the meantime, Labaree's plan is probably the best available, and if it ever gets off the ground, will suggest that Harvard is interested, concerned, and willing to act--even with its own money.