Pass-Fail

The Committee on Educational Policy, in approving a plan for fourth-course pass-fail last week, did little more than it had done two weeks earlier when it endorsed the general principle. Most of the technical problems surrounding pass-fail's implementation are not confronted by the CEP plan, which leaves matters almost entirely in the hands of the departments and the individual course instructors.

Whether the laissez-faire nature of the CEP proposal will seriously limit the number of students able to use pass-fail, or the number of courses they can use it in, remains unclear. It is certainly possible that fourth-course pass-fail will become a near-universal practice without the CEP or the Faculty specifying that it should be. But it would be a mistake for the Faculty to ratify pass-fail with no idea of its effect.

When the Faculty meets next month, it will take up the CEP pass-fail plan. At that time, it should make sure, either formally or informally, that individual Faculty members are not accepting the pass-fail idea without being prepared to apply it to their own courses.