Student-Organized Soc Rel Course Given Despite Financial Difficulties

The Social Relations Department is offering a student-organized course on "the educational process and the University" this Spring, as a section of Soc Rel 98.

At the end of last exam period, members of an SDS committee to study "the student and the University" suggested the course to George W. Goethals '43, associate chairman of the Soc Rel Department.

Although Goethals received the proposal enthusiastically, it appeared that the course would not be given because of a shortage of departmental funds. The Department skirted the difficulty by finding a teaching fellow, Michael G. Weinstein, who would instruct the course without pay.

The course was originally to be given by Robert A. Rosenthal, lecturer on Education at the Graduate School of Education.

Rosenthal, who holds a full-time research grant from the Federal Office of Education, was told that the government would cancel one quarter of his grant if he taught a course for credit.

Goethals and Rosenthal hope to persuade Edward T. Wilcox, director of the Program of General Education, to offer the course as a middle level Gen Ed course next year.

The purpose of the course, according to Rosenthal, is "to understand the process of education and socialization, especially as it affects Harvard undergraduates." Rosenthal will be sitting in on tutorial discussions.

The course will include discussion and reading on such topics as the structure of the student's life at various stages in his college experience, the selection process for college entrance, and an examination of the roles of the house system, lectures, grades, and social restrictions (such as parietals).

Before approaching the Soc Rel Department, the students asked several other departments to sponsor the course, but met with unfavorable responses, one committee member said.