History Dept. Revamps Program, Adds Junior Generals, Cuts Essay

The History Department has voted to give junior general examinations and to abolish its sophomore essay requirement.

The junior generals will be used to help screen potential honors candidates. Donald H. Fleming, chairman of the Department, said yesterday. A history student can now get into honors with a Group IV rank listing and a C+ in tutorial.

Students' sophomore tutorial grades, which previously depended on how well they did in the essay, will now be based on their performance in tutorial throughout the year, Fleming said.

Both revisions, passed by senior faculty members at a Department meeting last Thursday, will be effective for students who are now sophomores.

The elimination of the sophomore essay was one of several sweeping changes which history tutors urged the Department to adopt last spring -- and the only one which the Department finally approved.

Two weeks after the tutors proposed their reforms, Oscar Handlin, then chairman of the Department, announced that he was forming a committee of senior faculty members to study proposals.

Handlin's committee reported back to the Department on Oct. 13, recommending the elimination of sophomore tutorial and adding a proposal for junior generals. The senior faculty approved the report with only minor changes.

But the tutors had also asked that the emphasis in sophomore tutorial on historiography he replaced by a closer study of specific historical problems. The committee rejected this suggestion.

In addition, some tutors wanted the Department to require Group III standing for admission to honors and to offer a senior seminar as an alternative to writing a thesis.

By rejecting the seminar alternative, Fleming said, "We have reaffirmed that there is only one route to honors and that is the thesis."

Many of the tutors reportedly feel that unqualified students are being permitted to write theses. "Some of them [the tutors] had hoped to unload a large proportion of the thesis writers," Fleming said.

Tutors who want to reduce the number of thesis writers do not believe that junior generals will upgrade the honors program, Elliot Perkins '23, head tutor in History. said yesterday. He added that a number of tutors are also "lukewarm to opposed" to junior generals because they feel the exam will overshadow junior tutorial.

Perkins said the dissatisfied tutors might bring up the question of stiffening honors requirements again before the Department.

Both Perkins and Fleming agreed that junior generals would not necessarily cut down the number of seniors writing theses. The proportion of seniors taking honors in History, Harvard's largest department, has hovered around 70 per cent for the past five years.

The junior generals will be in two parts: the first dealing with broad questions of interpretation, which students will have to analyze with very specific information from any historical period they choose; the second consisting of a number of texts from major historians on which students will comment. The junior exam will not affect senior generals, which are given to all concentrators.

Perkins said a concentrator who was denied honors on the basis of exam grade and rank list could appeal directly to the senior tutor. If his case was strong. Perkins said, he might still be admitted to honors.

Fleming said the Department was still considering the use of senior seminars, but not as a substitute for the thesis. He said the seminars might be given as a supplement to the honors program