Business School May Meet During Summer

The Harvard Business School may hold a special session this summer for the benefit of first-year students who will become eligible for the draft in June.

The special session--which the Business School will authorize if 120 students agree to attend--would allow the students to receive their MBA degrees by mid-January, 1969, Richard L. Nohl, the school's director of student personnel, said yesterday.

Nohl said that he has no guarantee that draft boards would wait to induct students involved in the accelerated program until after they received their degrees. "We can only hope the draft boards will respect what we're doing," he said.

If authorized, the summer session will run from the beginning of June to the middle of September. It would be the first time the Business School's MBA program has met during the summer since the end of World War II, Nohl said.

After a second term--which would begin in September and run concurrently with the regular fall term--students would receive their degrees.

Thomas A. Graves, associate dean of the Business School for educational administration, said recently he was hopeful that the program, by accelerating the date of graduation, would serve for its students "the opportunity to finish their graduate work without interruption."

The Business School will circulate a memorandum to all first-year students rater this month to determine whether the required number of students will commit themselves to the summer program. A poll conducted earlier this month showed that 174 students were "positively interested" in the summer program, Nohl said.

The Business School administration is already outlining plans for summer operation, Nohl said. About 10 elective courses will be offered, and as many as 15 faculty members may be involved, he added.

The limited number of electives and the experience of 17 straight months at the Business School may deter some people from attending the summer session, Nohl said. Under the regular MBA program, students spend the summer at jobs related to their education.