A Parting Shot

In strictly academic terms, Harvard undergraduates have never had it so good. The Arts and Sciences catalogue shows a vast increase in the number and sophistication of courses open to them. Faculty members, who in the last decade have turned much of their energies to the University's advanced research centers, are beginning to use their findings in new middle-level General Education programs and in the departments; the number of courses a student may take to meet his General Education requirements has almost doubled in the past year, and next fall the increase will be even greater. Although the Humanities and, to some degree, the Natural Sciences have lagged behind the Social Sciences in new offerings, the Expository Writing 100's and a number of visual arts courses have proved successful experiments. Audio-visual aids and plans for computer services indicate a progressive view toward applying technology to instruction.

Yet, despite these advancements, Harvard College has raced along in imitation of the graduate schools without any major innovations in its overall educational system. The changes that have occurred, such as the growth of middle-group Gen Ed courses, have simply taken advantage of the greater intelligence and training of incoming freshmen.

It is a sad commentary on the Harvard Faculty and Administration that the Crimson Board's concluding editorial exactly ten years ago--before the $82.5 million fund drive for the College had begun and before the exhaustive Faculty debates on General Education--is equally relevant today: "But if Harvard is still to offer a unique educational experience, the Administration will have to resist the temptations of supermarket education, and to attend to the House system and independent study."

The Houses constitute the most feasible route to development within the College; the cost of House courses, lectures, Faculty discussions, and seminars is not prohibitive, and they would add intellectual vitality that is singularly lacking in the Houses now. The Master of Winthrop House has made several breakthroughs, but departments seem determined to hold on to their credited programs.

It is annoying for a student to see a resident guest or a non-resident professor limit his House appearances to the weekly Faculty luncheon. Logically, of course, the function of intermediary between Faculty and student should belong to resident tutors or House Committees; but the tutors are often too hung up in their own little world of grad school professionalism, while House Committees often limit their duties to maintaining the evening grill. The Gill Committee recently concluded that a senior should not be forced to remain on-campus if he is willing to pay his share of administrative expenses. Ideally, seniors should not want to move off campus except in rare circumstances. Mather House may partially ease the problems of over-crowding, and possibly by that time the Masters will extend week-day parietals that currently inconvenience and annoy students. Until then the Houses remain for many merely a convenient place to eat and sleep.

For as long as parietal restrictions have been a source of discontent, so has the lecture-exam rote system of instruction. The idea has long been abandoned that a three-hour exam teaches a student more than a term paper or is more conducive to instilling a genuine interest in the material. The freshman seminar program, small-group instruction such as independent studies, and tutorial were introduced as alternatives to the lecture system--and with overwhelming success and popularity. But these programs all started in the 1950's and have expanded little since. Financial considerations have limited their growth, but if a professor is sufficiently convinced that a student has the interest to profit from an independent study with him, and if he is willing to spare the time, there is no reason to prohibit it. Departments, however, maintain varying standards in accordance with their self-image, and even honor students are often denied the independent study by a department. Many students probably would not want the freedom, but for those who do, the departments should grant it.

Two recent plans, if fully enacted, would give students more academic responsibility. Fourth-course pass-fail may entice students to experiment in unfamiliar fields. And Master Chalmers has proposed that students should be allowed to devise their own fields of concentration under the direction of an ad hoc committee if the existing fields do not fit their interests. The idea is not a new one, but its acceptance would be. Interdisciplinary study, despite its success in specific projects at Harvard and M.I.T.'s research centers, is strangely threatening to some departments. Educational theorists, such as David Riesman and Christopher Jencks, explain this narcissistic attitude by saying that professors try to remake the college where they teach in the image of the graduate school that taught them. Therefore Riesman feels that the narrow, scholarly professionalism of graduate students must change from mere disciplinary advancement before ethics of college education can change.

If there has been one steady trend at Harvard College in recent years, it has been the increase in academic specialization. Pre-professionalism has gone hand in hand with Harvard's policy of expanding its graduate schools in order to train more instructors. It is admirable that Harvard should produce more teachers, and it is understandable (although not particularly beneficial to socety as a whole) that professors wish to train them to perpetuate their own disciplines and ethics among students. But the large majority of undergraduates and graduate students do not end up as teachers, and the Faculty should be more ready to accept this simple fact and to adjust its academic rules accordingly. For example, why should courses on public problems, taught by associates of the Joint Center for Urban Studies or the Institute of Politics, not be considered General Education?

Instead of seeking greater flexibility some departments are doing quite the opposite and are trying to drive out "dabblers" by raising concentration and honors requirements. The College's lack of a respectable alternative to the Honors program, increased course and departmental requirements, and graduate schools' emphasis on grades, all are contrary to a liberal education. Departmental semiautonomy blocks changes in this system--sometimes even if the Dean personally favors such a move. It is upon the Departments that students should exert more constructive pressure.

Student politicians at Harvard have been quick to pick up the rhetoric of "student power" this year; students are always looking for new ideological styles, and it is easy--and sometimes justified--to leap onto anti-authoritarian bandwagons within the University. But to demand student control over all social regulations and discipline, the curriculum, educational innovations, admissions, and the promotion of Faculty, is absolutely pointless. Even if the majority of a students body were to prefer their energetic peers over administrators as the decision-makers, and even if these students were able to devote full time to the University's government, it is unrealistic to think of Harvard as a democracy for students. It is not futile, however, as the Harvard Policy Committee and its chairman have proved, to organize and articulate opinions before the sources of Faculty power. The success of HPC audits and its pass-fail proposal show that the departmental oligarchies and the Dean of the Faculty are open to student pressure. But it is hard to justify any undergraduate government, except in terms of sheer parliamentary amusement, unless it seeks to express educational views effectively.

Harvard's rules on academic policy allow considerable leeway, and so it is seldom that departments bring their affairs to the full Faculty. When questions of policy or appointments arise within a department, the senior members (those with permanent rank) make the decisions. The departments always initiate recommendations for appointments within their discipline. These decisions are rubberstamped by the Dean and Governing Boards when non-permanent Faculty members are concerned; decisions on permanent status are usually subject to favorable review by ad hoc committees, consisting of scholars outside the nominating department and appointed by the Dean. The Corporation (the President and Fellows), which legally holds the authority, accepts the ad hoc recommendation in almost all cases. Therefore when students justifiably complain that teaching ability as well as scholarly reputation should be a criterion for appointments, they should direct their lobbying to the senior members of the Departments.

In other matters of academic policy, however, the Dean of the Faculty wields tremendous power. He holds budgetary and financial authority and can take over certain Faculty jurisdictions (admissions, for example); he appoints all Faculty committees; he controls parliamentary action and thus the process of legislation, by virtue of his position as presiding officer of the Committee on Educational Policy and as prime mover of other committees; and he exerts on-the-spot policy control by virtue of his administrative and budgetary authority.

When a person so powerful presents a program, the Faculty will balk only when it believes something is truly wrong. The Dean is paid to formulate, deliberate, and administer educational policy; the Faculty is usually indifferent and instead concentrates on its own research and instruction. The Dean is thus always better prepared for debate than his opponents, but it also means that the strident objections of a minority of active Faculty powers can have an exaggerated amount of power. For example, in last fall's two regular Faculty meetings, only 185 of the 700-man Faculty attended one meeting, while 175 attended the other. Therefore the Dean loses much of his support through Faculty indifference to educational matters. The Faculty is usually willing to accept what exists; it is only when the Dean introduces innovations that the opposition mounts.

The ability to gauge correctly the Faculty's temperament and to act accordingly is what, in addition to his purely managerial skill, determines whether the Dean will have the Faculty's confidence or not; and his whole authority is based on that confidence from the Faculty and Corporation. Therefore the Dean is reluctant to push the Faculty too hard for reforms. When Dean Ford says that the CEP cannot push any harder for the HPC's recommendations, then he is either against those proposals himself or he does not want to risk a Faculty reaction to "too much too fast." Students should exert greater pressure on departments to back the measures. On the whole, Harvard's Administration is pro-student while the Faculty is more reluctant to change things.

The Department chairmen are seldom the department's most powerful men, for the latter are often too strong-willed and even disputatious to get along with the Dean. These powerful men are the ones who hold the balance of power on the educational reform efforts that students have sporadically called for during the past decade. If the alternative of a more informal, flexible, and liberal education is to complement the current departmental specialization and pressures, students will have to work through departments, as well as through their Faculty and Administrative sympathizers.