Dean Ford Says Faculty Must Pay for Seminars

The freshman seminar program will begin to draw its funds from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the end of this year. The program "will have to fight for money just like any other department," Dean Ford said yesterday.

Ford also reported that the Committee on Educational Policy is studying ways to improve teaching in large lecture courses. To reduce the courses to small sections would be ideal, he said, but would cost far more than the College can afford.

Land Grant

A large grant from an anonymous donor, now believed to be Edwin H. Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, financed the freshman seminar program originally. The donor intended the grant to make the freshman year intellectually more interesting.

With the funds in hand, McGeorge Bundy, then Dean of the Faculty, created the seminar program. The Faculty approved a one-year trial during 1959-60, and then a three-year trial which ends this June. Though no more funds are available from the original donor, the Faculty voted Tuesday to continue the program.

The main reason for the formation of the Conway Committee last year was the necessity to study the seminar program in detail and to decide if Faculty money should be diverted to the seminars once the grant was exhausted.

Once the Faculty starts to pay for the seminars, the amount of money available to other departments in Arts and Sciences will be reduced slightly, but the proposal to continue the seminar program was passed unanimously by the Faculty on Tuesday.

At Tuesday's Faculty meeting, Reuben A. Brower, professor of English and Master of Adams House, said that the seminar program did not solve the important problem of improving the large lecture courses in the College. The seminar program might unduly divert Faculty resources from the General Education program, he cautioned.

Dean Ford said yesterday that the CEP is "looking into" the problem Brower raised, but did not reveal any specific actions.