Summer Enrollment Increases To Stem Three Year Decline

Enrollment in the Summer School has risen for the first time in three years after strong declines over the previous three years.

Although registration is not yet complete, the present summer attendance of 3563 represents a 10 per cent increase over the total at this time last year.

Thomas E. Crooks '49, director of Summer School, said yesterday that he was quite pleased with the increment of student interest in light of a nationwide trend through the 1970s in reduced summer school attendance.

Harvard summer attendance itself had dropped 10 per cent each year since its peak in 1969 when 5000 students attended.

No Selective Admission

Like most summer college programs, the Harvard Summer School does not have selective admissions and only certain courses require special applications. "The increase in summer attendance is reflective of the strength of our summer program in which students have shown interest," Crooks said.

According to Crooks the Summer School has fielded one of its strongest programs in the performing arts since its inception in 1872. Offered for the first time this summer is the Dance Center which incorporates instruction at various levels, a workshop and a resident company. A record number of between 600 and 800 students have chosen to participate in the Harvard summer band, chorus, and the Cantabrigia Orchestra.

Within the total summer enrollment, however, there has been a decline in the number of regularly enrolled Harvard students who previously made up one-third of the summer attendance.

Crooks said this decline could be attributed to the Harvard undergraduate's ability to take extra course loads in the Fall and Spring semesters without accompanying tuition cost, and to the increased financial aid pressures upon Harvard graduate students to support their studies in the summer without additional aid.

One hundred and fifty Summer School tuition scholarships are awarded yearly on the basis of need mostly to minority group students. However, grants outside of Harvard enable 25 per cent of the summer enrollees to have at least some form of partial aid