CEP Approves Pass-Fail Course; Faculty to Discuss It Next Term

The Committee on Educational Policy yesterday backed a proposal to let all upperclassmen take a free, pass-fail fifth course.

The Faculty will vote on the plan next term, Dean Ford said yesterday. If approved, it would go into effect in September.

Under the proposal, first suggested by the Harvard Policy Committee six weeks ago, sophomores, juniors and seniors wouldn't have to pay the normal $400 charge for a fifth course. At present, only juniors and seniors taking tutorial for credit are allowed to enroll in a fifth course free.

Students would have to indicate at the beginning of each term which course was their pass-fail course. They would not be allowed to switch later on.

The CEP supported the proposal, Ford explained, partly because it was impressed by signs of widespread undergraduate support for a pass-fail system. A recent HPC poll of 1648 students found that 74 per cent would take a pass-fail fifth course.

Ford had suggested that students' grades in their fifth course should be recorded, with the proviso that a poor grade wouldn't lower their rank in class.

But the CEP felt that a pass-fail course "was clearly what the students wanted," Ford said.

In backing a free, pass-fail fifth course, the nine professors on the CEP rejected arguments that the plan would attract too many students and put too much pressure on Harvard's classroom space and teacher supply. There will probably be some strain, Ford said, but the CEP felt it would be manageable.

The CEP will probably spend several more meetings working out the details of the proposal. It has not yet decided, for example, what the minimum grade should be for a "pass." One proposal calls for a third in-between category, "unsatisfactory," to take care of low C and D students.

It will also have to decide whether students taking ungraded tutorial or independent study should be allowed to take a second ungraded course.

And it will have to make a recommendation for or against the use of pass-fail courses to fulfill language, Gen Ed and concentration requirements.

Ronald H. Trosper '67, chairman of the HPC, said yesterday he was "surprised and pleased" that the CEP acted on the proposal so quickly.

The HPC polls also asked which courses students would take under a pass-fail system, and the Office of Tests is now evaluating the answers in an attempt to predict how course enrollments would be affected. The results won't be ready until reading period, Trosper said, and he had expected the CEP to wait for them.

He predicted that there will be some Faculty opposition to the proposal. "There's a lot of concern that pass-fail will create pressure on students to take a fifth course, and start a trend away from the four-course system," he said.