Faculty to Vote on Grades, Exams As Members Lead Lobby to Capitol

Harvard Faculty members suddenly moved into action on several fronts yesterday to free students for anti-war work and to take steps themselves against President Nixon's Southeast Asia policy.

Liberal Faculty members rounded up enough Faculty signatures on a petition to force Dean Dunlop to call an emergency Faculty meeting today to consider allowing students to skip final exams and take pass/fail grades in their courses. The meeting will be broadcast by WHRB at 4 p.m.

A group of 11 distinguished senior faculty members- including Dean May- announced they will go to Washington tonight to meet with legislators, cabinet members, and Presidential advisors to protest the invasion of Cambodia and the bombing of North Vietnam.

The group will be associated with a much larger group of Faculty members, students, and employees led by Everett I. Mendelsohn, professor of the History of Science, which is leaving for Washington tonight in fifteen buses. The group will spend Friday picketing Henry Kissinger's home and lobbying Senators and Congressmen in support of anti-war legislation. (See story at bottom of column one.)

The Committee on Houses yesterday afternoon unanimously passed a proposal for the Faculty that would let any studentchoose between taking his exams this Spring: taking them next Fall, or opting by petition to switch any course to passfail- in which case he would not have to take the final "if other evidence of satisfactory performance is available." Departments would be urged to accept "pass" graded courses toward concentration requirements.

On Monday, the COH had voted that students should merely have the option of postponing their exams until next fall. Explaining the committee's change of heart, Bruce Chalmers, Master of Winthrop House, said, "I myself have discovered in the past few days that I am unable to concentrate on anything but the events in Southeast Asia. I don't see how we can expect students to do so."

Several departments and individuals have proposed alternate plans ranging from closing the University and holding exams next Fall, to giving everyone a "credit" for every course he is enrolled in. The Faculty Council, the Faculty docket committee and the Faculty liberal caucus met last night in separate attempts to coordinate the various proposals. Faculty members will have the opportunity today to vote on the whole range of options.

Under the rules of the Faculty one-third of the Faculty- 260 people- is required for a quorum in order for the Faculty to do business. Liberal caucus members and members of the student strike committee are contacting as many Faculty members as they can today, to urge them to attend.

Senior Faculty

The senior Faculty members lobbying Friday in Washington include Dean May: Edwin O. Reischauer, University Professor and former U.S. ambassador to Japan: Richard E. Neustadt, professor of Government, who was an aide to President Truman: George B. Kistiakowsky. Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry, who was science advisor to President Eisenhower: Francis M. Bator, professor of Political Economy, who was an advisor to President Johnson; Seymour Martin Lipset, professor of Government and Social Relations; and William M. Capron, lecturer on Political Economy and former assistant Director of the Budget.

The group has appointments with Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.) and Eliot Richardson. Undersecretary of State. It expects to meet with Henry Kissinger, professor of Government (on leave) and Nixon's foreign policy advisor. Most members of the group are friends of Kissinger. They have asked for appointments with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, and several other Senators and Congressmen.

"We are people who until Nixon's latest speech would never have taken such public action and would probably not have wanted to affiliate ourselves with a group such as Professor Mendelsohn's." one of the group said yesterday. "But the President's unwarranted actions and totally unacceptable pre-1968 rhetoric are a lot of crap."

"We're going to try to impress on the President and his advisors that their actions in Southeast Asia are dangerous and wrong," May said. We've been trying to work quietly for a long time, but this time he's gone too far."