Ec Department Proposes Theses in Junior Year

If the Economics Department has its way, concentrators who take Ec 1 as freshmen, they will be allowed to have the equivalent of junior tutorial as sophomores and to write theses as juniors.

Those who take the early tutororial do not opt to move their thesis up a year, the department will offer a number of "topically oriented" seminars.

The seminars will cover topics such as "social relations" and "international economic problems," John T. Dunlop, chairman of the Economics Department, said yesterday.

The reason for the new set of alternatives, Dunlop explained, is that the present system "works inequitably on those people who take Ec 1 in their freshman year." Those freshmen must then wait till they are juniors for Ec 98, which which Dunlop considers to be the next logical course after Ec 1.

The question of admitting sophomores into Ec 98 was debated last November by the Economics Department's Committee on Undergraduate Education. The Committee decided then that the change would require Faculty approval because junior tutorials--by Faculty vote--can only be taken by juniors.

New Course Planned

But the plan now proposed would entail the creation of a new course, equivalent to Ec 98, that would probably be open only to sophomores who have already taken Ec 1. Concentrators who don't take Ec 1 in their first year will still go on to Ec 98 as juniors.

Department has submitted its proposals to Dean Ford for Faculty consideration, even though Dunlop says he is not sure the Faculty's edict on junior tutorials applies to this situation. "My own view," says Dunlop, "is that it does not."