In Progress

The Faculty Council decided this week to alter the format of the core curriculum proposal, auggesting the Faculty consider five core areas rather than the eight for which the task force originally called.

James Q. Wilson, Shattuck Professor of Government and the task force chairman, has repeatedly said that eight was a rather arbitrarily chosen number of core areas, and the council apparently agreed, merging several areas into one in the new proposal.

The revised edition of the propoal will return to the Faculty for a vote later this year.

HOUSING

Seventy per cent of the freshman class received their first choice Houses this week, and another 13 per cent received one of their top three choices.

About 17 per cent wer assigned randomly to one of the nine Houses they did not list on their housing preference forms.

GSAS ADMISSIONS

Applications to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences dropped by 10 per cent this year, and Faculty members generally attributed the decline to the tight job market for Ph.D.s.

The GSAS seems to be taking a sterner attitude toward the people who do apply anyway, adopting a new format for rejection letters this spring.

The school now sends different letters to applicants that almost got in than it sends to those applicants when the GSAS feels shouldn't have bothered applying.

The tone of the second letter, while perfectly polite, may well be cold enough to cut applications even further.

HIRING INVESTIGATION

A University investigation, released this week, cleared the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences' administration of charges that it violated affirmative action guidelines when it hired the individuals currently responsible for minority recruitment.

Michael Harris, spokesman for the GSAS minority student committee which made the charges, said this week he believes the administration "relied on semantic differentiation" to clear the GSAS, and said the group will release a full response to the investigation next week.

SOCIOBIOLOGY FILM

A capacity crowd of students, some concerned and some just curious, showed up in Science Center C on Monday night to view a film called "Sociobiology: Doin' What Comes Naturally," which apparently violates copywrite laws.

Irven DeVore, Professor of Anthropology, said this week he is seeking an injuction against the Canadian producers of the film for "lifting nine, ten or 11 scenes" from a film of his.