CEP Won't Alter Nat Sci 'Bypass'

The Committee on Educational Policy has decided not to try to stiffen the "Natural Sciences bypass," which permits a student to take two departmental science courses instead of a lowel-level Nat Sci General Education course.

The CEP had recommended to the Faculty in October that students be asked to meet the requirements for an upper-level course in the Natural Sciences as well as to take two middle-group departmental courses. It was expected at that time that background in calculus you'd be required for all upper-level courses in the Natural Sciences.

At November's Faculty meeting. Wendell H. Furry, chairman of the Physics Department, suggested that the bypass be left as it is. As Furry was speaking, the great Northeastern blackout set in; lights went off in University Hall and a voice vote proved inconclusive.

Edward T. Wilcox, secretary of the CEP. said the committee had been impressed by Furry's arguments, and had agreed particularly that students who switch out of the sciences after their freshman year should not be forced back in order to take another course. "They'll have enough trouble getting all their work done in their new field of concentration" Wilcox said.

Voting Today

The CEP's new proposal will be voted on by the Faculty at today's meeting and is expected to be approved. The CEP agreed on it unanimously.

The Faculty will also vote today on a CEP proposal to set up a new General Education Committee, to be chaired by Dean Ford. The Committee will incor- porate the present Gen Ed Committee and the Committee on Freshman Seminars. Wilcox, the director of the Freshman Seminar program, will probably be given a major staff assignment on the new committee.

The vote is simply a restatement of an overwhelming Faculty decision of last spring to make Dean Ford chairman of the new committee and to give the group supervision of freshman seminars. Both steps were recommended by the Doty Committee a year and a half ago.

The Committee will be charged with writing the Faculty's new votes into legislation and presenting it to the Faculty for its approval this spring. A spokesman explained that the votes taken this fall did not cover technicalities which must be written in the "Rules and Regulations of Harvard College." "These are just bits and pieces we're picking up," he said "The Gen Ed debate is over.