Elitism Gives Way to Dollars

Robert G. Gardner '48, chairman of the Visual and Environmental Studies Department, is fond of describing Vis Stud as a "small department with limited resources." The serious extent of these limitations was made aware to its faculty members Wednesday, as they voted, 9-1, to support a plan of fundamental reorganization in the department including opening admission to all undergraduates.

The proposed changes, which now await approval from the Faculty Council and Dean Rosovsky, would affect both present and future concentrators. Basically, they aim to provide relief to an honors program which is presently facing a financial squeeze.

Under the new guidelines, Vis Stud concentrators will no longer be required to follow the honors program of courses, and instead, be allowed to replace junior and senior tutorials with other courses offered within the department.

This, Gardner expects, will lead to a reduction in the absolute numbers of candidates for honors even though the size of the department as a whole may slightly swell because of the new policy of open enrollment.

In the past, students have had to apply for admission to the honors-only department, which ends up accepting about 30 out of the 60 to 75 applicants who apply each year.

If the actual number of Vis Stud honors candidates decreases as expected, the department will also be placed in a better position to provide for those seniors who are sincerely motivated in their desire to pursue a major project. Arthur Loeb, head tutor for the department, said Thursday.

More importantly, however, should the Vis Stud faculty's recommendations be adopted this year, "hundreds of faculty hours" would be released from the administrative chores which normally go into screening the large numbers of prospective applicants who apply to the department each spring.

Time, which would have been spent by faculty in meetings and interviews, will be channeled into educative undertakings--tutorials, for example, Gardner said.