The Sporting Life

The Harvard-Radcliffe Policy Committee issued one of its rare "policy resolutions" yesterday, after sub-committee wranglings, weeks of discussion, and consultation with the Faculty. What the HPC recommended--a free fifth course for all undergraduates, with the option of having it graded just "pass" or "fail"--is exciting. It would add another element to a Harvard education: gambling.

The advantages of a fifth course are clear. Many students, particularly honors candidates who devote half of their course work to concentration requirements, would welcome having an extra course with which to experiment. Juniors and seniors often regret that they have had little time to sample courses totally unrelated to their field of concentration or to satisfy their curiosity about the newest, least familiar fields like Visual Studies, Architectural Sciences, and Statistics.

Self-Made Gen Ed

Having the fifth course ungraded would be even more advantageous. A student who had no worries about a low grade even outside his field on his graduate school transcript could be really adventurous. This would be a self-made kind of General Education. If the individual had only to become competent enough to earn a "pass," the social scientist without previous preparation might be willing to approach a middle-level Fine Arts course; the Social Relations major might brave Chemistry; the scientist might not be daunted by Milton or writing courses.

Undergraduates' increasing "professionalism," the tendency to settle down to a major and stick with it through graduate school, has always stifled such experimentation. Desire to do well on generals and impress one's department begins early; students over-prepare within their concentrations. Courses of study are planned to satisfy Boards of Tutors, not intellectual curiosity. Pass-fail grading offers a way out of this deadly business.

The pass-fail system can be easily exploited, but the HPC has eliminated most of the possible abuses. They have asked that each student indicate on his study card which is to be his fifth course; he could not drop the course after November 1 and would have until reading period to decide whether his fifth course was to be graded pass-fail or A-B-C-D-E-. These stipulations are clearly necessary; if a student were able to change an ungraded course, that would be like being able to turn in a hand of cards if he didn't like the deal. No student should be allowed to juggle his courses or determine which is to be the pass-fail course after hour exams or first papers. If this were permitted, there would be no question about which would become the student's fifth course: the one that looked least encouraging, the one with the longest reading list, the one in which he wrote a poor hour exam.

A Limit on Bonuses

The HPC's only lapse was neglecting to set a limit on the number of pass-fail, free fifth courses a student could elect during his four years, although such a limit would seem advisable, for a couple of reasons:

* offering a fifth course to every student every term would raise the cost of Harvard education substantially, strain existing classroom facilities, and require extra teaching fellows and graders. The Faculty may feel, quite justifiably, that burdensome extra expenses would make the HPC's proposals unfeasible.

* undertaking a fifth course each term might prove too difficult for the individual student. The student's workload is divided traditionally into quarters; the normal course load is four. Carrying a fifth course would necessarily mean neglecting the other four at least to some extent.

Despite these obvious drawbacks to the HPC's recommendations, the Faculty ought to consider them carefully. The remaining flaws in the proposals can easily be written out, although the HPC itself has eliminated nearly all possible abuses; the Faculty would need only set limits to the number of free courses a student can elect.

The Faculty Will Wait

Dean Monro, who sat in on the HPC's discussions of these resolutions, has said the Faculty is interested in a pass-fail system of grading. They will withhold decision, however, until they have studied similar experiments undertaken this year at Princeton and Brown. But there can be little doubt that pass-fail grading, in some form, ought to be attempted here. Harvard students should not have to be so committed to concentrations that they cannot afford to take a chance. Gambling could prove to be the best kind of General Education.