Four GSAS Depts. to Be Studied By Grad Committee on Education

The Committee on Graduate Education--a student group set up to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences--has formed subcommittees to study four GSAS departments.

The subcommittees, made up of students from the departments to be studied, will examine the English, Geology, Linguistics, and History departments this year.

Allen Parker, chairman of the CGE, said that the subcommittees hope to send out their questionnaires to students by November and to give their initial reports to the department chairmen by March first at the latest.

Subcommittees Work

The CGE was formed last May at a meeting of the Graduate School Association. Its purpose, said Parker, is "only to initiate action and be aware of what's going on." The actual work will be done by the four subcommittees within their departments.

The primary objective of the subcommittees is to obtain the graduate students' opinions on the courses and examination programs in their departments, Parker said. Proposals for changes can then be compiled and discussed with the department chairmen.

"Considering graduate students tend to be a far more docile lot than undergraduates," Parker said, "their response to our plans has been very good."

Extracurricular Activities

The CGE also plans to probe into graduate students' academic problems which are not related to their courses and examination programs. A questionnaire on the extracurricular activities of graduate students will be sent out at he same ime as the four committees' departmental questionnaires.

The GSA will provide the funds for the CGE, which will then appropriate money to its subcommittees. The CGE has no ties with the Harvard Policy Committee, the undergraduate organization after which it is patterned. However, both Parker and Henry R. Norr '68, chairman of HPC, have expressed a desire for communications between the two committees.

The CGE plans to examine at least one department from each of the fields of the Humanities, the Natural Sciences, and the Social Sciences each year.