Faculty to Vote on Proposal To Stiffen Honors Standards

When the Faculty votes today on changes in the honors requirements, it will be voting on legislation that would not only tighten standards for honors in General Studies, but could entirely eliminate pass/fail from the curriculum.

There are no guarantees that this changed version of the standards, drawn up following a series of straw votes at the last Faculty meeting, will pass. In the week following publication of the new standards, two amendments were proposed. One of the amendments will result in stricter standards, while the other will make them more lenient.

Francis M. Pipkin, associate dean of the Faculty, says the legislation is meant only to stiffen the requirements for summas and cum laudes in General Studies. Ever since 82 per cent of the Class of 1974 received some kind of honors, there has been a feeling in the Faculty that honors are awarded too easily. About a year ago the Faculty voted to reword the rules governing them.

But if the legislation passes as it stands, it will affect more than the two areas the Faculty intended to tighten. The old rules required only a C- grade in two-thirds of the courses completed outside a student's concentration for a cum laude, but the new ones require at least B- in two-thirds of all courses taken outside the field of concentration.

Similarly, the present rules require a student to have a C or above in two-thirds of the courses taken outside his field for a magna, but the new regulations would require a B or above.

Minimal Impact

Raising the grade level for honors is not expected to have much impact. Pipkin says that if the proposed standards had been applied to the Class of '74, there would have been only a minimal cutback in the number of cums and magnas awarded. Raising the grade level is only recognition of general grade inflation, he adds.

But the proposal includes the word "all," where before it was only "completed courses." In the past, the registrar has interpreted this to mean a C- or above in two-thirds of all letter-graded courses; now, pass/fail and credit/no-credit courses would also be included in the calculations.

Edward T. Wilcox, who administers the freshman seminar program, points out that the proposed standards mean that students with credits for freshman seminars or independent studies could wind up scrambling to fill the requirements for cums, no matter how well they had done within their department.

If it passes as it stands, the proposed legislation for honors would make it much more difficult for students to take extra-departmental courses pass/fail. A decision to do so could mean ending any hope for honors in a department.

Before today's vote, Pipkin and Dean Whitlock will propose that the two-thirds requirement be reduced to one half the completed courses outside the field. This change would not be a return to the leniency of the present regulations, but it would leave some leeway for students to take a few pass/fail courses without endangering their chances for honors.

Alan Heimert '49, Cabot Professor of American Literature, and Pipkin will move that the legislation go into effect for all summas granted after July 1, 1976, and for all other degrees after July 1, 1977. The proposed legislation is presently stipulated to start with degrees recommended after July 1, 1978.

Heimert's proposal would have serious implications for students already in their sophomore year. If the legislation passes as it stands, with Heimert's amendment, sophomores with four "passes" in half courses and one C+ in a full-year course would no longer be eligible for any kind of departmental honors, no matter how well they did in their department.

At the last meeting, Pipkin made it obvious that if the Faculty wishes to really reduce honors, it will have to stop grade inflation.

As he walked out of that meeting, one tired Faculty member remarked, "Sometimes I think the reason behind all this is that degree meetings have just gotten so damned long."

But the Faculty is taking the whole matter seriously, and because it is serious, it seems unlikely to reach a consensus this afternoon