Fewer Students Pursuing Independent Work Credit

Only 169 students are doing independent work for credit this semester, down from 597 last spring and 267 last fall.

The decrease in the number of students pursuing independent work is due to the faculty and Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) decision to evaluate more closely student proposals for independent work, Glen W. Bowersock '57, associate dean of the Faculty for undergraduate education, said yesterday.

Whips and Chains

"We have been enforcing the independent work legislation as originally written," Bowersock said yesterday.

The application form for independent work was also revised last spring to make it clear to students just "what independent work was to be," Bowersock said. In a meeting last March, Dean Fox and Bowersock told the CUE that abuse of independent work credit had increased. Students were pursuing extracurricular, not academic studies, and credit was being allowed for studies that failed to meet the original independent work requirements.

Furor over a Kirkland House seminar on the football multiflex offense prompted the committee action.

In addition, CUE leaders said several professors were signing applications for "frivolous" independent work.

Under the independent work program, students can earn up to two of the 16 credits required for graduation in independent work.

Group seminars counted for credit last year included "The Knee." "Real Estate Broker Training, "Topics Relating to South Boston," "Dental Precentorship" and "New England Merchant's National Bank." Individual students created a photo essay on Mexico, invested their partents and their own savings in the stock market and studied "cabinetry."

Some members of the CUE argued against putting too many restrictions on independent work, calling it a necessary opportunity for students not served by Harvard's curriculum. Others, including Educational Resources Group member Peter M. Engel '81, argued that it was "a ludicrous reflection on a Harvard education."

No Poison

The current faculty guidelines were drawn in 1971.

The CUE tightened guidelines for approving independent work proposals by requiring a student's senior tutor to sign each proposal, as well as a faculty member providing a double-check on the validity of a student' proposal.

Administrators also complained that some faculty members were approving far too many independent work courses. Two administrators alone accounted for a large minority of the courses approved. Some CUE members advocating limiting the number of courses one faculty member could approve, while others suggested allowing only teaching faculty and not administrators to approve the courses.