Curriculum Flexibility and Experimentation:

( Rick Tilden '71 and Steve Bowman '72 were involved in the activities of New College and are now members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education. )

The recommendations presented below are designed to make undergraduate education at Harvard and Radcliffe more responsive to what we perceive to be the needs, goals, and feelings of students in 1970. We have not tried to offer a detailed philosophy of education which could provide a context and justification for our proposals. Instead, we have adopted as guiding principles the concepts of flexibility and experimentation and have grounded our suggestions in the unique nature of the system of educational resources that is Harvard University.

We hope that our ideas will be judged primarily by educational criteria, but the political and economic implications of our plan are worth considering. We find them exciting. For example, the most striking of our recommendations are probably the three-year A. B. program and the flexible course load. Consider the implications for admissions and scholarship policies: with from fifteen to twenty per cent ( our estimate ) of the students in the Colleges leaving a year earlier than they normally do now, many rooms are made available for women and other groups that are under-represented in the student body. And most scholarship recipients would not have to be helped financially for more than three years, which means that others may be admitted.

Academic Calendar

Fall term begins in early September and lasts until Christmas recess, with the last week and a half for exams. There is no college-wide reading period: course instructors may schedule reading periods if and when they wish. Course grades are due at the Registrar's office at the end of the first week in January.

The month of January is a period of INTENSIVE STUDIES for those who wish to participate, an extended vacation for others.

Spring term extends from early February to the end of May. Exam period is the last week and a half, with flexible and optional reading periods scheduled by instructors. By the end of the first week in June, course grades must be submitted to the Registrar and students' rooms must be vacated.

Course Load and Requirements for the A. B. Degree

RESIDENCE REQUIREMENT: Ordinarily, an undergraduate will be in residence for at least six full terms, with exceptions granted for work done for degree credit at other institutions (including transfer students and those studying abroad). Opportunities for pursuing academic work at other colleges for up to one full year should be extended to students outside Junior Year Abroad programs. A student should also be allowed to receive credit for up to one full term of field work pursued while not enrolled at an academic institution if and only if he pursues the work under the sponsorship and guidance of a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

In no case will an A. B. degree be awarded to a student who has not spent at least FOUR full terms in residence in Harvard or Radcliffe College. Students living off-campus maintain affiliation with one of the residential Houses, and if they enroll in courses in the University they are considered in residence. Dudley House will be dissolved.

Payment of full tuition for one term allows a student to enroll in up to six courses during that term. Ordinarily he will not take more than four courses in any one term, but up to two additional courses may be taken with the consent of the student's advisor. Any student may take fewer than four courses (as few as one) if his advisor consents. In no case will a rebate be granted on tuition for taking fewer than four courses in one term, but a student may choose to enroll in one or more summer school courses and pay reduced summer school tuition if he has taken a partial course load during any term.

COURSE REQUIREMENT: Eligibility for the A. B. degree is achieved upon the satisfactory completion (with a "credit," "pass," or a letter grade) of TWENTY-SEVEN TERM COURSES. One Intensive Study undertaken in January counts as one term course. By filing appropriate petitions a student may substitute a project for course work. If the project is to count toward concentration requirements, the student must obtain the approval of his departmental Committee on Undergraduate Instruction or the Committee on Special Studies. In all other cases, approval of the students' House Committee on Educational Policy must be obtained. These committees are described below.

A student may graduate after three years by taking four courses each term and an Intensive Study each January for the necessary 27 term courses. (A student who does not want to take an Intensive Study in January has the option of taking a fifth course during a term and still graduating in three years.) A student may also remain in the College for any part of a fourth year at regular tuition rates.

The flexibility inherent in these proposals allows an undergraduate to proceed at his own pace. He might, for example, elect to take Chemistry 20 and only one other course for one or two terms, making up for the reduced load in other terms. As a general recommendation, though, we ask the science departments to grant double credit for courses that demand heavy investments of time in laboratory work.

We would expect the average length of stay in the College to be between three and three and a half years.

ADVANCED STANDING AND PLACEMENT: We applaud the successful effort of many high schools to offer college-level courses to their students, but we view critically the tracking systems that A. P. and other programs have generated. Our criticism extends to the policies of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, for Advanced Standing and Honors distinctions have created divisive labels that are unnecessary and that have educational and social consequences which are often detrimental. We recommend that the present policy of granting Advanced Standing to selected entering students be terminated. The chance to graduate in three years minimizes the impact of this change, and we do not feel that an A. B. should be awarded for less than three years of college experience (either at Harvard or elsewhere).

Granting degree credit for scores on A. P. exams is a separate issue. We disapprove of the increasing tendency to grant credit for performance on exams alone. We view college courses and projects as whole experiences whose value should rest at least as much in their interpersonal and broadening aspects as in the information absorbed and gauged by exams. Consequently, we recommend:

That authority to grant Harvard degree credit for work done in high school or at other colleges be delegated to the various departmental Committees on Undergraduate Instruction or the Committee on Special Studies (where concentration credit is requested) and the House Committees on Educational Policy;

That the judgments of these committees be based on reports from the student's past teachers as well as his grades and exam scores. An undergraduate receiving credit for one or more high school courses would be able to take a reduced course load but would be subject to the general residence requirement. As now, previous work should be considered by a student, by his advisors, and by course instructors when he is planning his program or applying to courses.

CONCENTRATION REQUIREMENT: Each undergraduate must invest a portion-usually close to one half-of his academic program in the coherent and integrative study of an academic discipline or topical area. There are various merits to justify this requirement, among them:

The self-discipline that is fostered by the cumulative work on a problem or set of problems;

The satisfaction that comes from achieving some degree of competence in dealing with a set of inter-related issues; and

The ability to share, through formal or informal teaching, the knowledge gained in the pursuit of an extensive academic project. (This third reward is highly important, and we have taken it to heart in our conception of the January Intensive Studies period described below).

Ordinarily a student's core program of concentration is carried out under the auspices of an established department, division, or committee. Students with interests that are interdisciplinary or are in some way oriented toward one or more of the professional schools can petition to be accepted as a Special Concentrator under the auspices of the Committee on Special Studies. In cases where undergraduate programs include some work in such professional disciplines as law, theology, education, medicine, design, or public policy, cross-registration petitions will normally be honored by the various House Committees on Educational Policy.

The concentration requirement should be seen simply as a means to ensure that students take their work seriously enough to plan their undergraduate careers as coherent wholes. This was President Lowell's rationale for the requirement; for he knew that under Eliot's free elective system, many undergraduates selected their courses each term without any consideration of how the term's work might fit into their respective programs. We agree with Lowell that the requirement should be viewed as a norm and not as a mandatory stipulation. Individual cases should be judged by the Committee on Special Studies with open-minded sensitivity; and exceptions should be made for students who can demonstrate that, by virtue of previous work or outside reading, they should not be required to devote half their time to the study of a discipline or problem area.

Beyond the concentration requirement, no other regulations prescribe or limit the selection of courses or projects. The course requirements in expository writing, a foreign language, and specific areas in General Education would be dropped. We believe that the objective of distribution of course work should be encouraged through guidance rather than coerced through course requirements. Our suggestions regarding expository writing are offered below. In addition, we recommend that Rules Relating to College Studies contain a set of guidelines outlining the sorts of skills and levels of understanding that characterize what one might reasonably think of as informed men and women: competence in English composition and at least one foreign language; a taste of English literature and the literature of another culture; an historical and anthropological perspective on one's own society; some understanding of mathematics; a familiarity with one of the natural sciences and an awareness of the methodological similarities among all the sciences; an understanding of various theoretical approaches to the human personality and to human social behavior; and an empathy with, if not an involvement in the creative arts.

As a further recommendation related to concentration and distribution and to guidelines for undergraduates, we propose that all departments and professional schools make clear to entering students the types of undergraduate programs that graduate and professional schools prefer in judging applicants. Students preparing for these graduate programs would then be well advised to consult these sample plans of study.

The Individual Plan of Study...

Consists of two portions: the core concenration program and all non-concentration work, subsumed under the label general education.

CONCENTRATION: all courses, projects, and Independent Studies accepted for concentration credit by the appropriate department (s) or the Committee on Special Studies. Students who demonstrate academic motivation and ability in an introductory tutorial during their freshman year will normally be considered eligible for tutorials in their second and third years with a fourth-year tutorial optional. Special concentrators proposing junior and senior tutorials to the Committee on Special Studies must make arrangements to secure tutorial resources from appropriate departments. Students enrolled in junior and senior tutorials usually complete a senior essay or project by the end of their third year.

Any student, whether his plan of study includes tutorials or not, may request that he be given a comprehensive general examination administered by a committee designated by his department or committee. A student planning to pursue graduate studies would ordinarily profit by taking such an examination and including in his personal portfolio the committee's record of evaluation. (See the final section, on evaluation, for a description of the personal portfolio). Therefore, most students will elect to take their general examinations in the fall of their third year; and those who are working on senior essays or projects will have the remainder of the year to complete them.

TUTORIALS: We recommend that ALL departments offer introductory group tutorials for students who want an overview of a particular discipline. Students most interested would be freshmen who want an introduction to a possible field of concentration and who want to be eligible for junior and senior tutorials. Juniors and seniors might take introductory tutorials as well. In our conception, these tutorials would be historically and methodologically oriented. Most would be directed by departmental teaching fellows, and where expedient they might be affiliated with particular Houses without restricting enrollment to House members. Material covered in these tutorials should be determined by the departments themselves. Some discretion in content and a great deal of initiative in approach should be granted to the individual teaching fellow. Departments that do not have boards of tutors should establish them for the single purpose of designing and administering introductory group tutorials. As a final suggestion, we recommend that departments experiment with the January Intensive Studies period in scheduling introductory tutorials.

In our three-year degree scheme, the normal pattern of tutorials would be:

FRESHMEN...

Optional introductory group tutorial in some department for one term or in January; might take a second tutorial in another department; where possible, tied to a student's House.

JUNIORS...

Group tutorials for those in departments who are eligible on the basis of work in freshman tutorial; individual or, where feasible, group tutorials for special concentrators electing them and deemed eligible by the Committee on Special Studies.

SENIORS...

Individual tutorials for students working on senior essays or projects; others might try to gain admittance to a junior group tutorial or to an introductory tutorial outside their field. Students staying for part of a fourth year should ordinarily have fulfilled tutorial requirements and might enroll in group tutorials if admitted; individual tutorials for fourth-year students would not be possible except when senior essays had to be completed.

As a final word on concentrations, we recommend that each department establish a student-faculty Committee on Undergraduate Instruction to regularly review departmental teaching and requirements. Student members should be selected by lot from a pool of volunteer upperclassmen.

GENERAL EDUCATION: includes all studies outside the core program of concentration.

EVALUATION IN THE GENERAL EDUCATION PORTION OF THE STUDENT'S PLAN OF STUDY WILL ORDINARILY BE ON A NON-GRADED BASIS, that is, all work outside the student's concentration may be done for ungraded credit or for a pass. Grades are optional, however, and a student may have to take some courses for graded credit to fulfill pre-professional requirements.

Two guiding principles govern the ideal design of this part of a student's plan of study: DISTRIBUTION and EXPERIMENTATION. Increasing options for non-graded work outside a student's field of concentration will encourage him to pursue studies in areas which are unfamiliar to him and in which academic success is not initially assured. The notion of experimentation in general education applies to all portions of the educational process, including forms of instruction and evaluation. We would expect that most Intensive Studies undertaken in January (see next section) will be General-Education oriented, even though concentration credit might be requested and approved for them. In addition, we envision a proliferation of experimental House seminars, as well as House projects designed ad hoc by students, graduate teaching fellows, and professors.

Responsibility for designing and administering General Education offerings would be split between the Committee on General Education and House Committees on Educational Policy. On a University-wide level, the Gen. Ed. Committee would be responsible for establishing General Education courses that are listed in the catalogue of Courses of Instruction. The large Gen. Ed. course are among the best in the University, and the end of the General Education requirement would not mean the end of the program or of the Committee's work.

We are gravely concerned that the budgetary axe is threatening the Gen. Ed. program at this time and in the immediate future. We believe that one of the primary and urgent responsibilities of Harvard's next president should be to secure an endowment expressly for the General Education program at about $10 million. This sum would ensure close to an additional $800,000 yearly for the Committee's operating budget, bringing its total resources to about $1.7 million annually. Approximately $1 million could fund the large courses that are interdisciplinary in nature or taught by professors outside Arts and Sciences.

We would like to see each professional school represented in the Gen. Ed. program by at least one course similar to Soc. Sci. 137, Soc. Sci 150, and Hum. 11 and 14. Through this commitment by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the increased opportunities for cross-registration recommended above, Harvard would acknowledge that a "liberal education" need not preclude an exposure to the traditionally "professional" disciplines.

The remainder of the General Education Committee's funds should be used to support House affiliated seminars ($500,000) and to subsidize Independent Studies ($200,000).

We consider the Harvard-Radcliffe House system a singular educational asset with great potential for complementing departmental education and for institutionalizing curricular innovation. House General Education courses and projects should be expanded to foster study of contemporary social issues and problems. These House seminars would complement the traditional conception of General Education derived from the Redbook, the idea of a historical smorgasbord of Western civilization, which is still valuable. Members of all faculties in the University and fellows from the research institutes should be enlisted and compensated to lead House courses. Some of the successful informal courses now being offered through various institutes could be affiliated with different Houses and granted degree credit.

Active group projects in the creative arts, under the direction of qualified instructors from inside and outside the University, should also be based in the Houses and should receive Gen. Ed. funds and degree credit. Diversity and experimentation should characterize the form, as well as the content, of these House courses. Team teaching should be encouraged, especially in interdisciplinary courses. Instructors could teach jointly throughout the term or successively for several weeks each. Group research projects and workshops could also be started, along the lines of some of the Freshman Seminars and Applied Physics 14.

Primary responsibility for creating experimental House seminars and projects would rest in each House with a House Committee on Educational Policy (HCEP) consisting of nine official members: two Faculty Associates, two resident tutors, three undergraduates, the House Master, and one Senior Tutor as Chairman. The student representative from the House to the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life should be a de facto tenth member. The HCEP would be sensitive to the educational needs and preferences of the students it serves and would solicit individual and group suggestions for House Gen. Ed. courses. Ultimate authority for approving and funding House courses would rest with the Committee on General Education and the full Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Gen. Ed. Committee should establish a standard stipend of approximately $1500 to compensate a department or a professional school for the services of a Faculty member enlisted for a one-term House course.

Each HCEP would also have authority to screen proposals for January Intensive Studies that are based in its House and to approve Independent Study and cross-registration petitions submitted by House members and freshmen affiliated with the House (We recommend below that each freshman be affiliated with a House).

INDEPENDENT STUDY: All undergraduates, including freshmen, should be eligible to entroll in an Independent Study. An Independent Study petition should be signed by the Corporation appointee supervising the work and submitted to the student's HCEP for approval. If the student wanted to receive credit toward his concentration program for his Independent Study, his petition would also have to be signed by the appropriate representative of his department or the Committee on Special Studies.

Evaluation for Independent Studies should be on a pass/fail basis rather than for ungraded credit as now. Each supervisor should submit to the Registrar a report acknowledging the competition of (or failure to complete) work meriting a pass.

We propose that the total sum (at least $100,000) allotted each term to subsidize Independent Studies be evenly divided by the number of Independent Studies pursued during that term, with each supervisor receiving a portion proportional to the number of students he is supervising. A fixed limit of about three or four Independent Studies should be imposed on any one supervisor during a term.

Group Independent Studies should be encouraged. To that end, students should publicize their interests in House bulletins; and these bulletins should be distributed among the Houses so students can find others with similar interests. The January Intensive Studies would also benefit from this public advertisement of personal objectives.

A list of potential Independent Study supervisors should be made available through computerized compilation methods.

Limits on Independent Study: There should be no limit set on the number taken in any term, but no undergraduate should be able to include in his 27 term courses presented for credit toward the A. B. degree more than SIX Independent Studies of one-term duration.

EXPOSITORY WRITING: We propose that a program be designed to make effective assistance in expository writing available to all students at any time during their undergraduate careers. Courses and Independent Studies in English composition would count as Humanities courses for distribution purposes.

Entering freshmen and transfer students should be given a test prior to their selection of courses for their first term. This test would be designed to help each student evaluate his writing ability in light of the criticism received from the English teaching fellow who reads his essays. Students deciding that they would benefit from instruction and counseling in writing would be able to enroll in a basic expository writing course that teaches general techniques of exposition, or in a specialized writing course that teaches style and techniques peculiar to essays in specific fields (courses similar to the middle group expository writing offerings). In all cases, students should be able to choose the topics for composition.

A resident English tutor in each House should be compensated to serve as writing counselor to the students in his House and the freshmen affiliated with it. He should be available to advise students who seek his assistance in improving their writing. Graders of undergraduate course papers should be encouraged to recommend to a student that he consult with his writing counselor when his expository style or organizational technique could stand improvement.

Students should also be encouraged to take an Independent Study in writing if they feel one would be helpful. Such an Independent Study would normally be supervised by a House writing counselor and would be conducted in a group whenever possible to conserve tutorial resources and to encourage students to criticize each other's work.

( The conclusion will appear in tomorrow's CRIMSON.)